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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


THE  COMMON  SENSE 
OF  SOCIALISM 


A  SERIES  OF  LETTERS  ADDRESSED  TO 
JONATHAN   EDWARDS,  OF  PITTSBURG 


BY 


JOHN  SPARGO 


Author  of    "  The  Bitter  Cry  of    the  Children,"  "  Socialism  :  A 

Summary    and   Interpretation    of     Socialist    Principles," 

"  The  Socialists  :  Who  They  Are  and  What  They 

Stand  For,"    "  Capitalist  and  Laborer," 

Etc.,  Etc.,  Etc. 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1911 


Copyright  1909 
By  Charlbs  H.  Kerk  &  Coiip.\Ky 


TO 

GEORGE  H.  STROBELL 

AS 

A  TOKEN  OF  FRIENDSHIP  AND  LOVE 

THIS  LITTLE  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED 


14692.C0 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

1  By  Way  of  Introduction i 

II  What's  the  Matter  with  America?       ....  4 

III  The  Two  Classes  in  the  Nation  ......  12 

IV  How   Wealth   is  Produced  and  How  it  is  Dis- 

tributed       ....  26 

V    The  Drones  and  the  Bees 44 

VI    The  Root  of  the  Evil 68 

VII    From  Competition  to  Monopoly 81 

VIII  What  Socialism  is  and  What  it  is  Not     ...  94 

IX  What  Socialism  is  and  What  it  is  Not — Continued  118 

X  The  Objections  to  Socialism  Answered     .     .     .  136 

XI    What  Shall  We  Do,  Then  ? 170 

APPENDICES: 

I    A  Suggested  Course  of  Reading  on  Socialism  .  175 
II    How  Socialist  Books  are  Published      .     .     .     .179 


THE  COMMON  SENSE  OF 
SOCIALISM 


BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 

Socialism  is  undoubtedly  spreading.  It  is,  therefore,  right 
and  expedient  that  its  teachings,  its  claims,  its  tendencies,  its 
accusations  and  promises,  should  be  honestly  and  seriously  ex- 
amined.—  Prof.  Flint. 

*     *     * 

My  Dear  Mr.  Edwards:  I  count  it  good  fortune  to 
receive  such  letters  of  inquiry  as  that  which  you  have 
written  me.  You  could  not  easily  have  conferred  greater 
pleasure  upon  me  than  you  have  by  the  charming  candor 
and  vigor  of  your  letter.  It  is  said  that  when  President 
Lincoln  saw  Walt  Whitman,  "  the  good,  Gray  Poet," 
for  the  first  time  he  exclaimed,  "  Well,  he  looks  like  a 
man !  "  and  in  like  spirit,  when  I  read  your  letter  I  could 
not  help  exclaiming,  "  Well,  he  writes  like  a  man ! " 

There  was  no  need,  Mr.  Edwards,  for  you  to  apologize 
for  your  letter:  for  its  faulty  grammar,  its  lack  of 
"  style "  and  "  polish."  I  am  not  insensible  to  these, 
being  a  literary  man,  but,  even  at  their  highest  valuation, 
grammar  and  literary  style  are  by  no  means  the  most 
important  elements  of  a  letter.  They  are,  after  all,  only 
like  the  clothes  men  wear.  A  knave  or  a  fool  may  be 
dressed  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  while  a  good  man 

I 


2  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

or  a  sage  may  be  poorly  dressed,  or  even  clad  in  rags. 
Scoundrels  in  broadcloth  are  not  uncommon ;  gentlemen 
in  fustian  are  sometimes  met  with. 

He  would  be  a  very  unwise  man,  you  will  admit,  who 
tried  to  judge  a  man  by  his  coat.  President  Lincoln  was 
uncouth  and  ill-dressed,  but  he  was  a  wise  man  and  a 
gentleman  in  the  highest  and  best  sense  of  that  much 
misused  word.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Blank,  who 
represents  railway  interests  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
is  sleek,  polished  and  well-dressed,  but  he  is  neither  very 
wise  nor  very  good.  He  is  a  gentleman  only  in  the  con- 
ventional, false  sense  of  that  word. 

Lots  of  men  could  write  a  more  brilliant  letter  than 
the  one  you  have  written  to  me,  but  there  are  not  many 
men,  even  among  professional  writers,  who  could  write 
a  better  one.  What  I  like  is  the  spirit  of  earnestness 
and  the  simple  directness  of  it.  You  say  that  you  have 
"  Read  lots  of  things  in  the  papers  about  the  Socialists' 
ideas  and  listened  to  some  Socialist  speakers,  but  never 
could  get  a  very  clear  notion  of  what  it  was  all  about." 
And  then  you  add  "  Whether  Socialism  is  good  or  bad, 
wise  or  foolish,  /  want  to  know." 

I  wish,  my  friend,  that  there  were  more  working  men 
like  you;  that  there  were  millions  of  American  men  and 
women  crying  out :  "  Whether  Socialism  is  good  or  bad, 
wise  or  foolish,  /  want  to  know."  For  that  is  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom:  back  of  all  the  intellectual  progress  of 
the  race  is  the  cry,  /  ivant  to  know!  It  is  a  cry  that 
belongs  to  wise  hearts,  such  as  Mr.  Ruskin  meant  when 
he  said,  "  A  little  group  of  wise  hearts  is  better  than  a 
wilderness  full  of  fools."  There  are  lots  of  fools,  both 
educated  and  uneducated,  who  say  concerning  Socialism, 
which  is  the  greatest  movement  of  our  time,  "  I  don't 
know  anything  about  it  and  I  don't  want  to  know  any- 


BY    WAY   OF    INTRODUCTION  3 

thing  about  it."  Compared  with  the  most  learned  man 
aUve  who  takes  that  position,  the  least  educated  laborer 
in  the  land  who  says  "  I  want  to  know !  "  is  a  philosopher 
compared  with  a  fool. 

When  I  first  read  your  letter  and  saw  the  long  list  of 
your  objections  and  questions  I  confess  that  I  was 
somewhat  frightened.  Most  of  the  questions  are  fair 
questions,  many  of  them  are  wise  ones  and  all  of  them 
merit  consideration.  If  you  will  bear  with  me,  Mr. 
Edwards,  and  let  me  answer  them  in  my  own  way,  I 
propose  to  answer  them  all.  And  in  answering  them  I 
shall  be  as  honest  and  frank  with  you  as  I  am  with  my 
own  soul.  Whether  you  believe  in  Socialism  or  not  is 
to  me  a  matter  of  less  importance  than  whether  you  un- 
derstand it  or  not. 

You  complain  that  in  some  of  the  books  written  about 
Socialism  there  are  lots  of  hard,  technical  words  and 
phrases  which  you  cannot  properly  understand,  even 
when  you  have  looked  in  the  dictionary  for  their  mean- 
ing, and  that  is  a  very  just  complaint.  It  is  true  that 
most  of  the  books  on  Socialism  and  other  important  sub- 
jects are  written  by  students  for  students,  but  I  shall  try 
to  avoid  that  difficulty  and  write  as  a  plain,  average  man 
of  fair  sense  to  another  plain,  average  man  of  fair  sense. 

All  your  other  questions  and  objections,  about  "  stir- 
ring up  class  hatred,"  about  "  dividing-up  the  wealth 
with  the  lazy  and  shiftless,"  trying  to  "  destroy  religion," 
advocating  "  free  love  "  and  "  attacking  the  family,"  all 
these  and  the  many  other  matters  contained  in  your  let- 
ter, I  shall  try  to  answer  fairly  and  with  absolute  honesty. 

I  want  to  convert  you  to  Socialism  if  I  can,  Mr.  Ed- 
wards, but  I  am  more  anxious  to  have  you  understand 
Socialism. 


n 

what's    the    matter    with    AMERICA? 

It  seems  to  me  that  people  are  not  enough  aware  of  the 
monstrous  state  of  society,  absolutely  without  a  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  with  a  population  poor,  miserable  and 
degraded  in  body  and  mind,  as  if  they  were  slaves,  and  yet 
called  freemen.  The  hopes  entertained  by  many  of  the  effects 
to  be  wrought  by  new  churches  and  schools,  while  the  social 
evils  of  their  conditions  are  left  uncorrected,  appear  to  me 
utterly  wild. —  Dr.  Arnold,  of  Rugby. 

The  working-classes  are  entitled  to  claim  that  the  whole  field 
of  social  institutions  should  be  re-examined,  and  every  question 
considered  as  if  it  now  arose  for  the  first  time,  with  the  idea 
constantly  in  view  that  the  persons  who  are  to  be  convinced 
are  not  those  who  owe  their  ease  and  importance  to  the  present 
system,  but  persons  who  have  no  other  interest  in  the  matter 
than  abstract  justice  and  the  general  good  of  the  community. 
—  John  Stuart  Mill. 

I  presume,  Mr.  Edwards,  that  you  are  not  one  of 
those  persons  who  believe  that  there  is  nothing  the 
matter  with  America ;  that  you  are  not  wholly  content 
with  existing  conditions.  You  would  scarcely  be  inter- 
ested in  Socialism  unless  you  were  convinced  that  in  our 
existing  social  system  there  are  many  evils  for  which 
some  remedy  ought  to  be  found  if  possible.  Your  inter- 
est in  Socialism  arises  from  the  fact  that  its  advocates 
claim  that  it  is  a  remedy  for  the  social  evils  which  distress 
you  —  is  it  not  so? 

I  need  not  harrow  your  feelings,  therefore,  by  draw- 

4 


what's   the    matter   with    AMERICA?  5 

ing  for  you  pictures  of  dismal  misery,  poverty,  vice, 
crime  and  squalor.  As  a  workingman,  living  in  Pitts- 
burg, you  are  unhappily  familiar  with  the  evils  of  our 
present  system.  It  doesn't  require  a  professor  of  po- 
litical economy  to  understand  that  something  is  wrong 
in  our  American  life  today. 

As  an  industrial  city  Pittsburg  is  a  notable  example 
of  the  defective  working  of  our  present  social  and  in- 
dustrial system.  In  Pittsburg,  as  in  every  other  modern 
city,  there  are  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty. 
There  are  beautiful  residences  on  the  one  hand  and  mis- 
erable, crowded  tenement  hovels  upon  the  other  hand. 
There  are  people  who  are  so  rich,  whose  incomes  are  so 
great,  that  their  lives  are  made  miserable  and  unhappy. 
There  are  other  people  so  poor,  with  incomes  so  small, 
that  they  are  compelled  to  live  miserable  and  unhappy 
lives.  Young  men  and  women,  inheritors  of  vast  for- 
tunes, living  lives  of  idleness,  uselessness  and  vanity  at 
one  end  of  the  social  scale  are  driven  to  dissipation  and 
debauchery  and  crime.  At  the  other  end  of  the  social 
scale  there  are  young  men  and  women,  poor,  overbur- 
dened with  toil,  crushed  by  poverty  and  want,  also  driven 
to  dissipation  and  debauchery  and  crime. 

You  are  a  workingman.  All  your  life  you  have  known 
the  conditions  which  surround  the  lives  of  working  peo- 
ple like  yourself.  You  know  how  hard  it  is  for  the  most 
careful  and  industrious  workman  to  properly  care  for 
his  family.  If  he  is  fortunate  enough  never  to  be  sick, 
or  out  of  work,  or  on  strike,  or  to  be  involved  in  an 
accident,  or  to  have  sickness  in  his  family,  he  may  be- 
come the  owner  of  a  cheap  home,  or,  by  dint  of  much 
sacrifice,  his  children  may  be  educated  and  enabled  to 
enter  one  of  the  professions.  Or,  given  all  the  condi- 
tions stated,  he  may  be  enabled  to  save  enough  to  pro- 


6  COMMON    SENSE   OF  SOCIALISM 

vide  for  himself  and  wife  a  pittance  sufficient  to  keep 
them  from  pauperism  and  beggary  in  their  old  age. 

That  is  the  best  the  workingman  can  hope  for  as  a 
result  of  his  own  labor  under  the  very  best  conditions. 
To  attain  that  level  of  comfort  and  decency  he  must 
deny  himself  and  his  wife  and  children  of  many  things 
which  they  ought  to  enjoy.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  none  of  your  fellow-workmen  in  Pittsburg,  men 
known  to  you,  your  neighbors  and  comrades  in  labor, 
have  been  able  to  attain  such  a  condition  of  comparative 
comfort  and  security  except  by  dint  of  much  hardship 
imposed  upon  themselves,  their  wives  and  children. 
They  have  had  to  forego  many  innocent  pleasures;  to 
live  in  poor  streets,  greatly  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
children's  health  and  morals ;  to  concentrate  their  ener- 
gies to  the  narrow  and  sordid  aim  of  saving  money ;  to 
cultivate  the  instincts  and  feelings  of  the  miser. 

The  wives  of  such  men  have  had  to  endure  privations 
and  wrongs  such  as  only  the  wives  of  the  workers  in 
civilized  society  ever  know.  Miserably  housed,  cruelly 
overworked,  toiling  incessantly  from  morn  till  night,  in 
sickness  as  well  as  in  health,  never  knowing  the  joys  of 
a  real  vacation,  cooking,  scrubbing,  washing,  mending, 
nursing  and  pitifully  saving,  the  wife  of  such  a  worker 
is  in  truth  the  slave  of  a  slave. 

At  the  very  best,  then,  the  lot  of  the  workingman 
excludes  him  and  his  wife  and  children  from  most  of 
the  comforts  which  belong  to  modern  civilization.  A 
well-fitted  home  in  a  good  neighborhood  —  to  say  noth- 
ing of  a  home  beautiful  in  itself  and  its  surroundings  — 
is  out  of  the  question ;  foreign  travel,  the  opportunity 
to  enjoy  the  rest  and  educative  advantages  of  occasional 
journeys  to  other  lands,  is  likewise  out  of  the  question. 


what's   the    matter   with    AMERICA?  7 

Even  though  civic  enterprise  provides  pubHc  Hbraries 
and  art  galleries,  museums,  lectures,  concerts,  and  other 
opportunities  of  recreation  and  education,  there  is  not 
the  leisure  for  their  enjoyment  to  any  extent.  For  our 
model  workman,  with  all  his  exceptional  advantages, 
after  a  day's  toil  has  little  time  left  for  such  things,  and 
little  strength  or  desire,  while  his  wife  has  even  less  time 
and  even  less  desire. 

You  know  that  this  is  not  an  exaggerated  account. 
It  may  be  questioned  by  the  writers  of  learned  treatises 
who  know  the  life  of  the  workers  only  from  descriptions 
of  it  written  by  people  who  know  very  little  about  it, 
but  you  will  not  question  it.  As  a  workman  you  know 
it  is  true.  And  I  know  it  is  true,  for  I  have  lived  it. 
The  best  that  the  most  industrious,  thrifty,  persevering 
and  fortunate  workingman  can  hope  for  is  to  be  decently 
housed,  decently  fed,  decently  clothed.  That  he  and  his 
family  may  always  be  certain  of  these  things,  so  that 
they  go  down  to  their  graves  at  last  without  having 
experienced  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  want,  the  worker 
must  be  exceptionally  fortunate.  And  yet,  my  friend, 
the  horses  in  the  stables  of  the  rich  men  of  this  country, 
and  the  dogs  in  their  kennels,  have  all  these  things,  and 
more!  For  they  are  protected  against  such  overwork 
and  such  anxiety  as  the  workingman  and  the  working- 
man's  wife  must  endure.  Greater  care  is  taken  of  the 
health  of  many  horses  and  dogs  than  the  most  favored 
workingman  can  possibly  take  of  the  health  of  his  boys 
and  girls. 

At  its  best  and  brightest,  then,  the  lot  of  the  working- 
man  in  our  present  social  system  is  not  an  enviable  one. 
The  utmost  good  fortune  of  the  laboring  classes  is,  prop- 
erly considered,  a  scathing  condemnation  of  modern  so- 


8  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

ciety.  There  is  very  little  poetry,  beauty,  joy  or  glory 
in  the  life  of  tlie  workingman  when  taken  at  its  very 
best. 

But  you  know  very  well  that  not  one  workingman  in 
a  hundred,  nay,  not  one  in  a  thousand,  is  fortunate 
enough  never  to  be  sick,  or  out  of  work,  or  on  strike,  or 
to  be  involved  in  an  accident,  or  to  have  sickness  in  his 
family.  Not  one  worker  in  a  thousand  lives  to  old  age 
and  goes  down  to  his  grave  without  having  known  the 
pangs  of  hunger  and  want,  both  for  himself  and  those 
dependent  upon  him.  On  the  contrary,  dull,  helpless, 
poverty  io  the  lot  of  millions  of  workers  whose  lines  arc 
cast  in  lesr  pleasant  places. 

Mr.  Fr'^deric  Harrison,  the  well-known  conservative 
English  publicist,  some  years  ago  gave  a  graphic  de- 
scription of  the  lot  of  the  working  class  of  England,  a 
description  which  npplie?  to  the  working  class  of  Amer- 
ica with  equal  force.     He  said : 

"  Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  actual  producers  of  wealth  have  no 
home  that  they  can  call  their  own  beyond  the  end  of  a  week, 
have  no  bit  of  soil,  or  so  much  as  a  room  that  belongs  to 
them ;  have  nothing  of  value  of  any  kind  except  as  much  as  will 
go  in  a  cart ;  have  the  precarious  chance  of  weekly  wages  which 
barely  suffice  to  keep  them  in  health ;  are  housed  for  the  most 
part  in  places  that  no  man  thinks  fit  for  his  horse ;  are  separated 
by  so  narrow  a  margin  from  destruction  that  a  month  of  bad 
trade,  sickness  or  unexpected  loss  brings  them  face  to  face  with 
hunger  and  pauperism."  * 

I  am  perfectly  willing,  of  course,  to  admit  that,  upon 
the  whole,  conditions  are  worse  in  England  than  in  this 
country,  but  I  am'  still  certain  that  Mr.  Harrison's  de- 
scription  is    fairly   applicable   to   the   United    States   of 

*  Report  of  the  Industrial  Remuneration  Conference,  1886,  p. 
429-  ^-nJ 


what's   the    matter   with    AMERICA?  9 

America,  in  this  year  of  Grace,  nineteen  hundred  and 
eight. 

At  present  we  are  passing  through  a  period  of  indus- 
trial depression.  Everywhere  there  are  large  numbers 
of  unemployed  workers.  Poverty  is  rampant.  Notwith- 
standing all  that  is  being  done  to  ease  their  misery,  all 
the  doles  of  the  charitable  and  compassionate,  there  are 
still  many  thousands  of  men,  women  and  children  who 
are  hungry  and  miserable.  You  see  them  every  day  in 
Pittsburg,  as  I  see  them  in  New  York,  Philadelphia, 
Boston,  Cleveland,  Chicago,  and  elsewhere.  It  is  easy 
to  see  in  times  like  the  present  that  there  is  some  great, 
vital  defect  in  our  social  economy. 

Later  on,  if  you  will  give  me  your  attention,  Jonathan, 
I  want  you  to  consider  the  causes  of  such  cycles  of 
depression  as  this  that  we  are  so  patiently  enduring. 
But  at  present  I  am  interested  in  getting  you  to  realize 
the  terrible  shortcomings  of  our  industrial  system  at  its 
best,  in  normal  times.  I  want  to  have  you  consider  the 
state  of  affairs  in  times  that  are  called  "  prosperous  "  by 
the  politicians,  the  preachers,  the  economists,  the  statis- 
ticians and  the  editors  of  our  newspapers.  I  am  not 
concerned,  here  and  now,  with  the  exceptional  distress 
of  such  periods  as  the  present,  but  with  the  ordinary, 
normal,  chronic  misery  and  distress;  the  poverty  that 
is  always  so  terribly  prevalent. 

Do  you  remember  the  talk  about  the  "  great  and  un- 
exampled prosperity  "  in  which  you  indulged  during  the 
latter  part  of  1904  and  the  following  year?  Of  course 
you  do.  Everybody  was  talking  about  prosperity,  and 
^a  stranger  visiting  the  United  States  might  have  con- 
cluded that  we  were  a  nation  of  congenital  optimists. 
Yet,  it  was  precisely  at  that  time,  in  the  very  midst  of 
our  loud  boasting  about  prosperity,  that  Robert  Hunter 


10  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

challenged  the  national  brain  and  conscience  with  the 
statement  that  there  were  at  lease  ten  million  persons  in 
poverty  in  the  United  States.  If  you  have  not  read  Mr. 
Hunter's  book,  Jonathan,  I  advise  you  to  get  it  and 
read  it.  You  will  find  in  it  plenty  of  food  for  serious 
thought.  It  is  called  Poverty,  and  you  can  get  a  copy 
at  the  public  library.  From  time  to  time  I  am  going  to 
suggest  that  you  read  various  books  which  I  believe  you 
will  find  useful.  "  Reading  maketh  a  full  man,"  pro- 
vided that  the  reading  is  seriously  and  wisely  done. 
Good  books  relating  to  the  problems  you  have  to  face 
as  a  worker  are  far  better  for  reading  than  the  yellow 
newspapers  or  the  sporting  prints,  my  friend. 

When  they  first  read  Mr.  Hunter's  startling  statement 
that  there  were  ten  million  persons  in  the  United  States 
in  poverty,  many  people  thought  that  he  must  be  a  sen- 
sationalist of  the  worst  type.  It  could  not  be  true,  they 
thought.  But  when  they  read  the  startling  array  of  facts 
upon  which  that  estimate  was  based  they  modified  their 
opinion.  It  is  significant,  I  think,  that  there  has  been 
no  very  serious  criticism  of  the  estimate  made  by  any 
reputable  authority. 

Do  you  know,  Jonathan,  that  in  New  York  of  all  the 
persons  who  die  one  in  every  ten  dies  a  pauper  and  is 
buried  in  Potter's  Field?  It  is  a  pity  that  we  have  not 
statistics  upon  this  point  covering  most  of  our  cities, 
including  your  own  city  of  Pittsburg.  If  we  had,  I 
should  ask  you  to  try  an  experiment.  I  should  ask  you 
to  give  up  one  of  your  Saturday  afternoons,  or  any  day 
when  you  might  be  idle,  and  to  take  your  stand  at  the 
busiest  corner  in  the  city.  There,  I  would  have  you 
count  the  people  as  they  pass  by,  hurrying  to  and  fro, 
and  every  tenth  person  you  counted  I  would  have  you 
note  by  making  a  little  cross  on  a  piece  of  paper.     Think 


what's    the    matter    with    AMERICA?  II 

>vhat  an  awful  tally  it  would  be,  Jonathan.  How  sick 
and  weary  at  heart  you  would  be  if  you  stood  all  day 
counting,  saying  as  every  tenth  person  passed,  "  There 
goes  another  marked  for  a  pauper's  grave !  "  And  it 
might  happen,  you  know,  that  the  fateful  count  of  ten 
would  mark  your  own  boy,  or  your  own  wife. 

We  are  a  practical,  hard-headed  people.  That  is  our 
national  boast.  You  are  a  Yankee  of  the  good  old  Mas- 
sachusetts stock,  I  understand,  proud  of  the  fact  that 
you  can  trace  your  descent  right  back  to  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers.  But  with  all  our  hard-headed  practicality,  Jon- 
athan, there  is  still  some  sentiment  left  in  us.  Most  of 
us  dread  the  thought  of  a  pauper's  grave  for  ourselves 
or  friends,  and  struggle  against  such  fate  as  we  struggle 
against  death  itself.  It  is  a  foolish  sentiment  perhaps, 
for  when  the  soul  leaves  the  body  a  mere  handful  of 
clod  and  marl,  the  spark  of  divinity  forever  quenched, 
it  really  does  not  matter  what  happens  to  the  body,  nor 
where  it  crumbles  into  dust.  But  we  cherish  the  senti- 
ment, nevertheless,  and  dread  having  to  fill  pauper 
graves.  And  when  ten  per  cent,  of  those  who  die  in 
the  richest  city  of  the  richest  nation  on  earth  are  laid 
at  last  in  pauper  graves  and  given  pauper  burial  there  is 
something  radically  and  cruelly  wrong. 

And  you  and  I,  with  our  fellows,  must  try  to  find  out 
just  what  the  wrong  is,  and  just  how  we  can  set  it  right. 
Anything  less  than  that  seems  to  me  uncommonly  like 
treason  to  the  republic,  treason  of  the  worst  kind. 
Alas !  Alas !  such  treason  is  very  common,  friend  Jona- 
than —  there  are  many  who  are  heedless  of  the  wrongs 
that  sap  the  life  of  the  republic  and  careless  of  whether 
or  no  they  are  righted. 


Ill 

THE   TWO    CLASSES    IN    THE    NATION 

Mankind  are  divided  into  two  great  classes  —  the  shearers  and 
the  shorn.  You  should  always  side  with  the  former  against  the 
latter. —  Talleyrand. 

All  men  having  the  same  origin  are  of  equal  antiquity;  nature 
has  made  no  difference  in  their  formation.  Strip  the  nobles 
naked  and  you  are  as  well  as  they ;  dress  them  in  your  rags, 
and  you  in  their  robes,  and  you  will  doubtless  be  the  nobles. 
Poverty  and  riches  only  discriminate  betwixt  you. —  Machiavelli. 

Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  be  stolen  from. — 
Thomas  Carlyle. 

I  want  you  to  consider,  friend  Jonathan,  the  fact  that 
in  this  and  every  other  civilized  country  there  are  two 
classes.  There  are,  as  it  were,  two  nations  in  every  na- 
tion, two  cities  in  every  city.  There  is  a  class  that  lives 
in  kixury  and  a  class  that  lives  in  poverty.  A  class 
constantly  engaged  in  producing  wealth  but  owning  little 
or  none  of  the  wealth  produced  and  a  class  that  enjoys 
most  of  the  wealth  without  the  trouble  and  pain  of  pro- 
ducing it. 

If  I  go  into  any  city  in  America  I  can  find  beautiful 
and  costly  mansions  in  one  part  of  the  city,  and  miser- 
able, squalid  tenement  hovels  in  another  part.  And  I 
never  have  to  ask  where  the  workers  live.  I  know  that 
the  people  who  live  in  the  mansions  don't  produce  any- 
thing; that  the  wealth  producers  alone  are  poor  and 
miserably  housed. 

Republican  and  Democratic  politicians  never  ask  you 

12 


THE  TWO   CLASSES   IN    THE   NATION  1 3 

to  consider  such  things.  They  expect  you  to  let  them 
do  all  the  thinking,  and  to  content  yourself  with  shout- 
ing and  voting  for  them.  As  a  Socialist,  I  want  you  to 
do  some  thinking  for  yourself.  Not  being  a  politician, 
but  a  simple  fellow-citizen,  I  am  not  interested  in  having 
you  vote  for  anything  you  do  not  understand.  If  you 
should  offer  to  vote  for  Socialism  without  understanding 
it,  I  should  beg  you  not  to  do  it.  I  want  you  to  vote  for 
Socialism,  of  course,  but  not  unless  you  know  what  it 
means,  why  you  want  it  and  how  you  expect  to  get  it. 
You  see,  friend  Jonathan,  I  am  perfectly  frank  with  you, 
as  I  promised  to  be. 

You  will  remember,  I  hope,  that  in  your  letter  to  me 
you  made  the  objection  that  the  Socialists  are  constantly 
stirring  up  class  hatred,  setting  class  against  class.  I 
want  to  show  you  now  that  this  is  not  true,  though  you 
doubtless  believed  that  it  was  true  when  you  wrote  it. 
I  propose  to  show  you  that  in  this  great  land  of  ours 
there  are  two  great  classes,  the  "  shearers  and  the  shorn," 
to  adopt  Talleyrand's  phrase.  And  I  want  you  to  side 
with  the  shorn  instead  of  with  the  shearers,  because,  if  I 
am  not  sadly  mistaken,  my  friend,  you  are  one  of  the 
shorn.  Your  natural  interests  are  with  the  workers,  and 
all  the  workers  are  shorn  and  robbed,  as  I  shall  try  to 
show  you. 

You  work  in  one  of  the  great  steel  foundries  of  Pitts- 
burg, I  understand.  You  are  paid  wages  for  your  work, 
but  you  have  no  other  interest  in  the  establishment. 
There  are  lots  of  other  men  working  in  the  same  place 
under  similar  conditions.  Above  you,  having  the  au- 
thority to  discharge  you  if  they  see  fit,  if  you  displease 
them  or  your  work  does  not  suit  them,  are  foremen  and 
bosses.  They  are  paid  wages  like  yourself  and  your  fel- 
low workmen.     True,  they  get  a  little  more  wages,  and 


14  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

they  live  in  consequence  in  a  little  better  homes  than  most 
of  you,  but  they  do  not  own  the  plant.  They,  too,  may 
be  discharged  by  other  bosses  above  them.  There  are  a 
few  of  the  workmen  who  own  a  small  number  of  shares 
of  stock  in  the  company,  but  not  enough  of  them  to  have 
any  kind  of  influence  in  its  management.  They  are  just 
as  likely  to  be  turned  out  of  employment  as  any  of  you. 

Above  all  the  workers  and  bosses  of  one  kind  and 
another  there  is  a  general  manager.  Wonderful  stories 
are  told  of  the  enormous  salary  he  gets.  They  say  that 
he  gets  more  for  one  week  than  you  or  any  of  your  fel- 
low workmen  get  for  a  whole  year.  You  used  to  know 
him  well  when  you  were  boys  together.  You  went  to 
the  same  school ;  played  "  hookey  "  together ;  bathed  in 
the  creek  together.  You  used  to  call  him  "  Richard  " 
and  he  always  used  to  call  you  "  Jon'thun."  You  lived 
close  to  each  other  on  the  same  street. 

But  you  don't  speak  to  each  other  nowadays.  When 
he  passes  through  the  works  each  morning  you  bend  to 
your  work  and  he  does  not  notice  you.  Sometimes  you 
wonder  if  he  has  forgotten  all  about  the  old  days,  about 
the  games  you  used  to  play  up  on  "  the  lots,"  the 
"  hookey  "  and  the  swimming  in  the  creek.  Perhaps  he 
has  not  forgotten :  perhaps  he  remembers  well  enough, 
for  he  is  just  a  plain  human  being  like  yourself  Jona- 
than ;  but  if  he  remembers  he  gives  no  sign. 

Now,  I  want  to  ask  you  a  few  plain  questions,  or, 
rather,  I  want  you  to  ask  yourself  a  few  plain  questions. 
Do  you  and  your  old  friend  Richard  still  live  on  the 
same  street,  in  the  same  kind  of  houses  like  you  used 
to?  Do  you  both  wear  the  same  kind  of  clothes,  like 
you  used  to  ?  Do  you  and  he  both  go  to  the  same  places, 
mingle  with  the  same  company,  like  you  used  to  in  the 
old  days?    Does  your  wife  wear  the  same  kind  of  clothes 


THE   TWO    CLASSES    IN    THE    NATION  1 5 

tha\:  his  wife  does?  Does  his  wife  work  as  hard  as  your 
wife  does?  Do  they  both  belong  to  the  same  social 
"  set  "  or  does  the  name  of  Richard's  wife  appear  in  the 
SocioJ  Chronicle  in  the  daily  papers  while  your  wife's 
does  tiot?  When  you  go  to  the  theater,  or  the  opera, 
do  yo'j  and  your  family  occupy  as  good  seats  as  Richard 
and  his  family  in  the  same  way  that  you  and  he  used  to 
occupy  "  quarter  seats  "  in  the  gallery  ?  Are  your  chil- 
dren anj  Richard's  children  dressed  equally  well?  Your 
fourteen-yoar-old  girl  is  working  as  a  cash-girl  in  a 
store  and  your  fifteen-year-old  boy  is  working  in  a  fac- 
tory. What  about  Richard's  children?  They  are  about 
the  same  age,  you  know :  is  his  girl  working  in  a  store, 
his  boy  in  a  factory?  Richard's  youngest  child  has  a 
nurse  to  take  care  of  her.  You  saw  her  the  other  day, 
you  remember:  how  about  your  youngest  child  —  has 
she  a  nurse  to  care  for  her? 

Ah,  Jonathan!  I  know  very  well  how  you  must  an- 
swer these  questions  as  they  flash  before  your  mind  in 
rapid  succession.  You  and  Richard  are  no  longer 
chums ;  your  wives  don't  know  each  other ;  your  children 
don't  play  together,  but  are  strangers  to  one  another; 
you  have  no  friends  in  common  now.  Richard  lives  in  a 
mansion,  while  you  live  in  a  hovel;  Richard's  wife  is  a 
fine  "  lady "  in  silks  and  satins,  attended  by  flunkeys, 
while  your  wife  is  a  poor,  sickly,  anaemic,  overworked 
drudge.  You  still  live  in  the  same  city,  yet  not  in  the 
same  world.  You  would  not  know  how  to  act  in  Rich- 
ard's home,  before  all  the  servants;  you  would  be  em- 
barrassed if  you  sat  down  at  his  dinner  table.  Your 
children  would  be  awkward  and  shy  in  the  presence  of 
his  children,  while  they  would  scorn  to  introduce  your 
children  to  their  friends. 

You   have   drifted    far   apart,   you   two,   my   friend. 


l6  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

Somehow  there  yawns  between  you  a  great,  impassable 
gulf.  You  are  as  far  apart  in  your  lives  as  prince  and 
pauper,  lord  and  serf,  king  and  peasant  ever  were  in 
the  world's  history.  It  is  wonderful,  this  chasm  that 
yawns  between  you.     As  Shakespeare  has  it: 

Strange  it  is  that  bloods 
Alike  of  colour,  weight  and  heat,  pour'd  out  together, 
Would  quite  confound  distinction,  yet  stand  off 
In  differences  so  mighty. 

I  am  not  going  to  say  anything  against  your  one-time 
friend  who  is  now  a  stranger  to  you  and  the  lord  of 
your  life.  I  have  not  one  word  to  say  against  him. 
But  I  want  you  to  consider  very  seriously  if  the  changes 
we  have  noted  are  the  only  changes  that  have  taken 
place  in  him  since  the  days  when  you  were  chums  to- 
gether. Have  you  forgotten  the  Great  Strike,  when 
you  and  your  fellow  workers  went  out  on  strike,  demand- 
ing better  conditions  of  labor  and  higher  wages?  Of 
course  you  have  not  forgotten  it,  for  that  was  when  your 
scanty  savings  were  all  used  up,  and  you  had  to  stand, 
humiliated  and  sorrowful,  at  the  relief  station,  or  in  the 
"  Bread  Line,"  to  get  food  for  your  little  family. 

Those  were  the  dark  days  when  your  dream  of  a  little 
cottage  in  the  country,  with  hollyhocks  and  morning- 
glories  and  larkspurs  growing  around  it,  melted  away 
like  the  mists  of  the  morning.  It  was  the  dream  of  your 
young  manhood  and  of  your  wife's  young  womanhood ; 
it  was  the  dream  of  your  earliest  years  together,  and 
you  both  worked  and  saved  for  that  little  cottage  in  the 
suburbs  where  you  would  spend  the  sunset  hours  of  life 
together.  The  Great  Strike  killed  your  beautiful  dream ; 
it  killed  your  wife's  hopes.  You  have  no  dream  now  and 
no  hope  for  the  sunset  hours.     When  you  think  of  them 


THE   TWO   CLASSES    IN   THE   NATION  I7 

you  become  bitter  and  try  to  banish  the  thought.  I 
know  all  about  that  faded  dream,  Jonathan. 

Why  did  you  stay  out  on  strike  and  suffer?  Why 
did  you  not  remain  at  work,  or  at  least  go  back  as  soon 
as  you  saw  how  hard  the  fight  was  going  to  be?  "  What! 
desert  my  comrades,  and  be  a  traitor  to  my  brothers  in 
the  fight  ? "  you  say.  But  I  thought  you  did  not  believe 
in  classes !  I  thought  you  were  opposed  to  the  Socialists 
because  they  set  class  to  fight  class!  You  were  fighting 
the  company  then,  weren't  you;  trying  to  force  them  to 
give  you  decent  conditions?  You  called  it  a  fight,  Jona- 
than, and  the  newspapers,  you  remember,  had  great  head- 
lines every  day  about  the  "  Great  Labor  War." 

It  wasn't  the  Socialists  who  urged  you  to  go  out  on 
strike,  Jonathan.  You  had  never  heard  of  Socialism 
then,  except  once  you  read  something  in  the  papers  about 
some  Socialists  who  were  shot  down  by  the  Czar's  Cos- 
sacks in  the  streets  of  Warsaw.  You  got  an  idea  then 
that  a  Socialist  was  a  desperado  with  a  firebrand  in  one 
hand  and  a  bomb  in  the  other,  madly  seeking  to  burn 
palaces  and  destroy  the  lives  of  rich  men  and  rulers. 
No,  it  was  not  due  to  Socialist  agitation  that  you  went 
out  on  strike. 

You  went  out  on  strike  because  you  had  grown  des- 
perate on  account  of  the  wanton,  wicked,  needless  waste 
of  human  life  that  went  on  under  your  very  eyes,  day 
after  day.  You  saw  man  after  man  maimed,  man  after 
man  killed,  through  defects  in  the  machinery,  and  the 
company,  through  your  old  chum  and  playmate,  refused 
to  make  the  changes  necessary.  They  said  that  it  would 
"  cost  too  much  money,"  though  you  all  knew  that  the 
shareholders  were  reaping  enormous  profits.  Added  to 
that,  and  the  fact  that  you  went  hourly  in  dread  of 
similar  fate  befalling  you,  your  wife  had  a  hard  time 


l8  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

to  make  both  ends  meet.  There  was  a  time  when  you 
could  save  something  every  week,  but  for  some  time 
before  the  strike  there  was  no  saving.  Your  wife  com- 
plained ;  your  comrades  said  that  their  wives  complained. 
Finally  you  all  agreed  that  you  could  stand  it  no  longer ; 
that  you  would  send  a  committee  to  interview  the  man- 
ager and  tell  him  that  unless  you  got  better  wages  and 
unless  something  was  done  to  make  your  lives  safer  you 
would  go  out  on  strike. 

When  you  and  the  manager  were  chums  together  he 
was  a  kind,  good-hearted,  generous  fellow,  and  you  felt 
certain  that  when  the  Committee  explained  things  it 
would  be  all  right.  But  you  were  mistaken.  He  cursed 
at  them  as  though  they  were  dogs,  and  you  could  scarcely 
believe  your  own  ears.  Do  you  remember  how  you 
spoke  to  your  wife  about  it,  about  "  the  change  in 
Dick  "  ? 

You  went  out  on  strike.  The  manager  scoured  the 
country  for  men  to  take  your  places.  Ruffianly  men 
came  from  all  parts  of  the  country;  insolent,  strife-pro- 
voking thugs.  More  than  once  you  saw  your  fellow- 
workmen  attacked  and  beaten  by  thugs,  and  then  the 
police  were  ordered  to  club  and  arrest  —  not  the  ag- 
gressors but  your  comrades.  Then  the  manager  asked 
the  mayor  to  send  for  the  troops,  and  the  mayor  did  as  he 
was  bidden  do.  What  else  could  he  do  when  the  leading 
stockholders  in  the  company  owned  and  controlled  the 
Republican  machine?  So  the  Republican  mayor  wired 
to  the  Republican  Governor  for  soldiers  and  the  soldiers 
came  to  intimidate  you  and  break  the  strike.  One  day 
you  heard  a  rifle's  sharp  crack,  followed  by  a  tumult  and 
they  told  you  that  one  of  your  old  friends,  who  us*d  to 
go  swimming  with  you  and  Richard,  the  manager,  ^^ad 


THE    TWO    CLASSES    IN    THE    NATION  I9 

been  shot  by  a  drunken  sentry,  though  he  was  doing 
no  harm. 

You  were  a  Democrat.  Your  father  had  been  a  Dem- 
ocrat and  you  "  just  naturally  growed  up  to  be  one." 
As  a  Democrat  you  were  very  bitter  against  the  Repub- 
lican mayor  and  the  Republican  Governor.  You  hon- 
estly thought  that  if  there  had  been  a  good  Democrat  in 
each  of  those  offices  there  would  have  been  no  soldiers 
sent  into  the  city;  that  your  comrade  would  not  have 
been  murdered.  You  spoke  of  little  else  to  your  fellows. 
You  nursed  the  hope  that  at  the  next  election  they  would 
turn  out  the  Republicans  and  put  the  Democrats  in. 

But  that  delusion  was  shattered  like  all  the  rest,  Jona- 
than, when,  soon  after,  the  Democratic  President  you 
were  so  proud  of,  to  whom  you  looked  up  as  to  a  mod- 
ern Moses,  sent  federal  troops  into  Illinois,  over  the  pro- 
test of  the  Governor  of  that  Commonwealth,  in  defiance 
of  the  laws  of  the  land,  in  violation  of  the  sacred  Con- 
stitution he  had  sworn  to  protect  and  obey.  Your  faith 
in  the  Democratic  Party  was  shattered.  Henceforth  you 
could  not  trust  either  the  Republican  Party  or  the 
Democratic  Party. 

I  don't  want  to  discuss  the  strike  further.  That  is  all 
ancient  history  to  you  now.  I  have  already  gone  a  good 
deal  farther  afield  than  I  wanted  to  do,  or  than  I  intended 
to  do  when  I  began  this  letter.  I  want  to  go  back  — 
back  to  our  discussion  of  the  great  gulf  that  divides  you 
and  your  former  chum,  Richard. 

I  want  you  to  ask  yourself,  with  perfect  candor  and 
good  faith,  whether  you  believe  that  Richard  has  been 
so  much  better  than  you,  either  as  workman,  citizen, 
husband  or  father,  that  his  present  position  can  be  re- 
garded as  a  just  reward  for  his  virtue  and  ability?     I'll 


20  COMMON    SExVSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

put  it  another  way  for  you,  Jonathan :  in  your  own  heart 
do  you  beheve  that  you  are  so  much  inferior  to  him  as  a 
worker  or  as  a  citizen,  so  much  inferior  in  mentality  and 
in  character  that  you  deserve  the  hard  fate  which  has 
come  to  you,  the  ill-fortune  compared  to  his  good  for- 
tune ?  Are  you  and  your  family  being  punished  for  your 
sins,  while  he  and  his  family  are  being  rewarded  for  his 
virtues?  In  other  words,  Jonathan,  to  put  the  matter 
very  plainly,  do  you  believe  that  God  has  ordained  your 
respective  states  in  accordance  with  your  just  deserts? 

You  know  that  is  not  the  case,  Jonathan.  You  know 
very  well  that  both  Richard  and  yourself  share  the  frail- 
ties and  weaknesses  of  our  kind.  Infinite  mischief  has 
been  done  by  those  who  have  given  the  struggle  between 
the  capitalists  and  the  workers  the  aspect  of  a  conflict 
between  "  goodness  "  on  the  one  side  and  "  wickedness  " 
upon  the  other.  Many  things  which  the  capitalists  do 
appear  very  wicked  to  the  workers,  and  many  things 
which  the  workers  do,  and  think  perfectly  proper  and 
right,  the  capitalists  honestly  regard  as  improper  and 
wrong. 

I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  some  capitalists  Whose 
conduct  deserves  our  contempt  and  condemnation,  just 
as  there  are  some  workingmen  of  whom  the  same  is  true. 
Still  less  would  I  deny  that  there  is  a  very  real  ethical 
measure  of  life ;  that  some  conduct  is  anti-social  while 
other  conduct  is  social.  I  simply  want  you  to  catch  my 
point  that  we  are  creatures  of  our  environment,  Jona- 
than ;  that  if  the  workers  and  the  capitalists  could  change 
places,  there  would  be  a  corresponding  change  in  their 
views  of  many  things.  I  refuse  to  flatter  the  workers, 
my  friend :  they  have  been  flattered  too  much  already. 

Politicians  seeking  votes  always  tell  the  workers  how 
greatly  they  admire  them  for  their  intelligence  and  for 


THE   TWO    CLASSES    IN    THE    NATION  21 

their  moral  excellencies.  But  you  know  and  I  know 
that  they  are  insincere;  that,  for  the  most  part,  their 
praise  is  lying  hypocrisy.  They  practice  what  you  call 
"  the  art  of  jollying  the  people  "  because  that  is  an  im- 
portant part  of  their  business.  The  way  they  talk  to 
the  working  class  is  very  different  from  the  way  they 
talk  of  the  working  class  among  themselves.  I've  heard 
them,  my  friend,  and  I  know  how  most  of  them  despise 
the  workers. 

The  working  men  and  women  of  this  country  have 
many  faults  and  failings.  Many  of  them  are  ignorant, 
though  that  is  not  quite  their  own  fault.  Many  a  work- 
ingman  starves  and  pinches  his  wife  and  little  ones  to 
gamble,  squandering  his  money,  yes,  and  the  lives  of  his 
family,  upon  horse  races,  prize-fights,  and  other  brutal 
and  senseless  things  called  "  sport."  It  is  all  wrong, 
Jonathan,  and  we  know  it.  Many  of  our  fellow  work- 
men drink,  wasting  the  children's  bread-money  and  mak- 
ing beasts  of  themselves  in  saloons,  and  that  is  wrong, 
too,  though  I  do  not  wonder  at  it  when  I  think  of  the 
hells  they  work  in,  the  hovels  they  live  in  and  the  dull, 
soul-deadening  grind  of  their  daily  lives.  But  we  have 
got  to  struggle  against  it,  got  to  conquer  the  bestial 
curse,  before  we  can  get  better  conditions.  Men  who 
soak  their  brains  in  alcohol,  or  who  gamble  their  chil- 
dren's bread,  will  never  be  able  to  make  the  world  a  fit 
place  to  live  in,  a  place  fit  for  little  children  to  grow  in. 

But  the  worst  of  all  the  failings  of  the  working  class, 
in  my  humble  judgment,  is  its  indifference  to  the  great 
problems  of  life.  Why  is  it,  Jonathan,  that  I  can  get 
tens  of  thousands  of  workingmen  in  Pittsburg  or  any 
large  city  excited  and  wrought  to  feverish  enthusiasm 
over  a  brutal  and  bloody  prize-fight  in  San  Francisco, 
or  about  a  baseball  game,  and  only  a  man  here  and  there 


22  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

interested  in  any  degree  about  Child  Labor,  about  the 
suffering  of  little  babies?  Why  is  it  that  the  workers, 
in  Pittsburg  and  every  other  city  in  America,  are  less 
interested  in  getting  just  conditions  than  in  baseball 
games  from  which  all  elements  of  honest,  manly  sport 
have  been  taken  away ;  brutal  slugging  matches  between 
professional  pugilists ;  horseraces  conducted  by  gamblers 
for  gamblers ;  the  sickening,  details  of  the  latest  scandal 
among  the  profligate,  idle  rich? 

I  could  get  fifty  thousand  workingmen  in  Pittsburg 
to  read  long,  disgusting  accounts  of  bestiality  and  vice 
more  easily  than  I  could  get  five  hundred  to  read  a 
pamphlet  on  the  Labor  Problem,  on  the  wrongfulness  of 
things  as  they  are  and  how  they  might  be  made  better. 
The  masters  are  wiser,  Jonathan.  They  watch  and 
guard  their  own  interests  better  than  the  workers  do. 

If  you  owned  the  tools  with  which  you  work,  my 
friend,  and  whatever  you  could  produce  belonged  to  you, 
either  to  use  or  to  exchange  for  the  products  of  other 
workers,  there  would  be  some  reason  in  your  Fourth  of 
July  boasting  about  this 

Blest  land  of  Liberty, 

But  you  don't.  You,  and  all  other  wage-earners,  depend 
upon  the  goodwill  and  the  good  judgment  of  the  men 
who  own  the  land,  the  mines,  the  factories,  the  railways, 
and  practically  all  other  means  of  producing  wealth  for 
the  right  to  live.  You  don't  own  the  raw  material,  the 
machinery  or  the  railways ;  you  don't  control  your  own 
jobs.  Most  of  you  don't  even  own  your  own  miserable 
hornes.  These  things  are  owned  by  a  small  class  of 
people  when  their  number  is  compared  with  the  total 
population.     The   workers   produce   the   wealth   of   this 


THE  TWO   CLASSES   IN    THE   NATION  23 

and  every  other  country,  but  they  do  not  own  it.  They 
get  just  enough  to  keep  them  alive  and  in  a  condition  to 
go  on  producing  wealth  —  as  long  as  the  master  class 
sees  fit  to  have  them  do  it. 

Most  of  the  capitalists  do  not,  as  capitalists,  contribute 
in  any  manner  to  the  production  of  wealth.  Some  of 
them  do  render  services  of  one  kind  and  another  in  the 
management  of  the  industries  they  are  connected  with. 
Some  of  them  are  directors,  for  example,  but  they  are 
always  paid  for  their  services  before  there  is  any  dis- 
tribution of  profits.  Even  when  their  "  work  "  is  quite 
perfunctory  and  useless,  mere  make-beheve,  like  the 
games  of  little  children,  they  get  paid  far  more  than 
the  actual  workers.  But  there  are  many  people  who 
own  stock  in  the  company  you  work  for,  Jonathan,  who 
never  saw  the  foundries,  who  were  never  in  the  city 
of  Pittsburg  in  their  lives,  whose  knowledge  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  company  is  limited  to  the  stock  quotations 
in  the  financial  columns  of  the  morning  papers. 

Think  of  it:  when  you  work  and  produce  a  dollar's 
worth  of  wealth  by  your  labor,  it  is  divided  up.  You 
get  only  a  very  small  fraction.  The  rest  is  divided  be- 
tween the  landlords  and  the  capitalists.  This  happens  in 
the  case  of  every  man  among  the  thousands  employed 
by  the  company.  Only  a  small  share  goes  to  the  work- 
ers, a  third,  or  a  fourth,  perhaps,  the  remainder  being 
divided  among  people  who  have  done  none  of  the  work. 
It  may  happen,  does  happen  in  fact,  that  an  old  profligate 
whose  delight  is  the  seduction  of  young  girls,  a  wanton 
woman  whose  life  would  shame  the  harlot  of  the  streets, 
a  lunatic  in  an  asylum,  or  a  baby  in  t,he  cradle,  will  get 
more  than  any  of  the  workers  who  toil  before  the  glaring 
furnaces  day  after  day. 


24  COMMON  si:nse  of  socialism 

These  are  terrible  assertions,  Jonathan,  and  I  do  not 
blame  you  if  you  doubt  them.  I  shall  prove  them  for 
you  in  a  later  letter. 

At  present,  I  want  you  to  get  hold  of  the  fact  that  the 
wealth  produced  by  the  workers  is  so  distributed  that  the 
idle  and  useless  classes  get  most  of  it.  People  will  tell 
you,  Jonathan,  that  "  there  are  no  classes  in  Amerca," 
and  that  the  Socialists  lie  when  they  say  so.  They  point 
out  to  you  that  your  old  chum,  Richard,  who  is  now  a 
millionaire,  was  a  poor  boy  like  yourself.  They  say  he 
rose  to  his  present  position  because  he  had  keener  brains 
than  his  fellows,  but  you  know  lots  of  workmen  in  the 
employ  of  the  company  who  know  a  great  deal  more 
about  the  work  than  he  does,  lots  of  men  who  are  cleverer 
than  he  is.  Or  they  tell  you  that  he  rose  to  his  present 
position  because  of  his  superior  character,  but  you  know 
that  he  is,  to  say  the  least,  no  better  than  the  average  man 
who  works  under  him. 

The  fact  is,  Jonathan,  the  idle  capitalists  must  have 
some  men  to  carry  on  the  work  for  them,  to  direct  it  and 
see  that  the  workers  are  exploited  properly.  They  must 
have  some  men  to  manage  things  for  them;  to  see  that 
elections  are  bought,  that  laws  in  their  interests  are 
passed  and  not  laws  in  the  interests  of  the  people.  They 
must  have  somebody  to  do  the  things  they  are  too  "  re- 
spectable "  to  do  —  or  too  lazy.  They  take  such  men 
from  the  ranks  of  the  workers  and  pay  them  enormous 
salaries,  thereby  making  them  members  of  their  own 
class.  Such  men  are  really  doing  useful  and  necessary 
work  in  managing  the  business  (though  not  in  corrupt- 
ing legislators  or  devising  swindling  schemes)  and  are 
to  that  extent  producers.  But  their  interests  are  with 
the  capitalists.  They  live  in  palaces,  like  the  idlers ;  they 
mingle  in  the  same  social  sets;  they  enjoy  the  same  lux- 


THE  TWO  CLASSES   IN   THE   NATION  25 

uries.  And,  above  all,  they  can  invest  part  of  their  large 
incomes  in  other  concerns  and  draw  enormous  profits 
from  the  labors  of  other  toilers,  sometimes  even  in  other 
lands.  They  are  capitalists  and  their  v^hole  influence  is 
on  the  side  of  the  capitalists  against  the  workers, 

I  want  you  to  think  over  these  things,  friend  Jona- 
than. Don't  be  afraid  to  do  your  own  thinking !  If  you 
have  time,  go  to  the  library  and  get  some  good  books  on 
the  subject  and  read  them  carefully,  doing  your  own 
thinking  no  matter  what  the  authors  of  the  books  may 
say.  I  suggest  that  you  get  W.  J.  Ghent's  Mass  and 
Class  to  begin  with.  Then,  when  you  have  read  that,  I 
shall  be  glad  to  have  you  read  Chapter  VI  of  a  book 
called  Socialism:  A  Summary  and  Interpretation  of  So- 
cialist Principles.  It  is  not  very  hard  reading,  for  I 
wrote  the  book  myself  to  meet  the  needs  of  just  such 
earnest,  hard-working  men  as  yourself. 

I  think  both  books  will  be  found  in  the  public  library. 
At  any  rate,  they  ought  to  be.  But  if  not,  it  would  be 
worth  your  while  to  save  the  price  of  a  few  whiskies 
and  to  buy  them  for  yourself.  You  see,  Jonathan,  I 
want  you  to  study. 


IV 

HOW   WEALTH   IS   PRODUCED  AND   HOW   IT  IS  DISTRIBUTED 

It  is  easy  to  persuade  the  masses  that  the  good  things  of 
this  world  are  unjustly  divided  —  especially  when  it  happens  to 
be  the  exact  truth. —  /.  A.  Froude. 

The  growth  of  wealth  and  of  luxury,  wicked,  wasteful  and 
wanton,  as  before  God  I  declare  that  luxury  to  be,  has  been 
matched  step  by  step  by  a  deepening  and  deadening  poverty, 
which  has  left  whole  neighborhoods  of  people  practically  without 
hope  and  without  aspiration. —  Bishop  Potter. 

At  present,  all  the  wealth  of  Society  goes  first  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  Capitalist.  .  .  .  He  pays  the  landowner  his 
rent,  the  labourer  his  wages,  the  tax  and  tithe-gatherer  their 
claims,  and  keeps  a  large,  indeed,  the  largest,  and  a  constantly 
augmenting  share  of  the  annual  produce  of  labour  for  himself. 
The  Capitalist  may  now  be  said  to  be  the  first  owner  of  all  the 
wealth  of  the  community,  though  no  law  has  conferred  on  him 
the  right  of  this  property.  .  .  This  change  has  been  effected 
by  the  taking  of  interest  on  Capital  .  .  .  and  it  is  not  a  little 
curious  that  all  the  lawgivers  of  Europe  endeavoured  to  pre- 
vent this  by  Statutes  —  viz.,  Statutes  against  usury. —  Rights 
of  Natural  and  Artificial  Property  Contrasted  {An  Anonymous 
work,  published  in  London,  in   1832). —  Th.  Hodgskin. 

You  are  not  a  political  economist,  Jonathan,  nor  a 
statistician.  Most  books  on  political  economy,  and  most 
books  filled  with  statistics,  seem  to  you  quite  unintelli- 
gible. Your  education  never  included  the  study  of  such 
books  and  they  are,  therefore,  almost  if  not  quite  worth- 
less to  you. 

But  every  working  man  ought  to  know  something 
about  political  economy  and  be  familiar  with  some  sta- 

26 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED    AND   DISTRIBUTED        27 

listics  relating  to  social  conditions.  So  I  am  going  to 
ask  you  to  study  a  few  figures  and  a  little  political  econ- 
omy. Only  just  a  very  little,  mind  you,  just  to  get  you 
used  to  thinking  about  social  problems  in  a  scientific 
way.  I  think  I  can  set  the  fundamental  principles  of 
political  economy  before  you  in  very  simple  language, 
and  I  will  try  to  make  the  statistics  interesting. 

But  I  want  to  warn  you  again,  Jonathan,  that  you 
must  use  your  own  commonsense.  Don't  trust  too  much 
to  theories  and  figures  —  especially  figures.  Somebody 
has  said  that  you  can  divide  the  liars  of  the  world  into 
three  classes  —  liars,  damned  liars  and  statisticians. 
Some  people  are  paid  big  salaries  for  juggling  with  fig- 
ures to  fool  the  American  people  into  believing  what  is 
not  true,  Jonathan.  I  want  you  to  consider  the  laws  of 
political  economy  and  all  the  statistics  I  put  before  you 
in  the  light  of  your  own  commonsense  and  your  own 
practical  experience. 

Political  economy  is  the  name  which  somebody  long 
ago  gave  to  the  formal  study  of  the  production  and  dis- 
tribution of  wealth.  Carlyle  called  it  '*  the  dismal  sci- 
ence," and  most  books  on  the  subject  are  dismal  enough 
to  justify  the  term.  Upon  my  library  shelves  there  are 
some  hundreds  of  volumes  dealing  with  political  econ- 
omy, and  I  don't  mind  confessing  to  you  that  some  of 
them  I  never  have  been  able  to  understand,  though  I  have 
put  no  little  effort  and  conscience  into  the  attempt.  I 
have  a  suspicion  that  the  authors  of  these  books  could 
not  understand  them  themselves.  That  the  reason  why 
they  could  not  write  so  that  a  man  of  fair  intelligence 
and  education  could  understand  them  was  the  fact  that 
they  had  no  clear  ideas  to  convey. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  what  do  we  mean  by  Wealth} 
Why,  you  say,  wealth  is  money  and  money  is  wealth. 


28  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

But  that  is  only  half  true,  Jonathan.  Suppose,  for  ex- 
ample, that  an  American  millionaire  crossing  the  ocean 
be  shipwrecked  and  find  himself  cast  upon  some  desert 
island,  like  another  Robinson  Crusoe,  without  food  or 
means  of  obtaining"  any.  Suppose  him  naked,  without 
tool  or  weapon  of  any  kind,  his  one  sole  possession  being 
a  bag  containing  ten  thousand  dollars  in  gold  and  bank- 
notes to  the  value  of  as  many  millions.  With  that 
money,  in  New  York,  or  any  other  city  in  the  world,  he 
would  be  counted  a  rich  man,  and  he  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  getting  food  and  clothing. 

But  alone  upon  that  desert  island,  what  could  he  do 
with  the  money?  He  could  not  eat  it,  he  could  not  keep 
himself  warm  with  it?  He  would  be  poorer  than  the 
poorest  savage  in  Africa  whose  only  possessions  were  a 
bow  and  arrow  and  an  assegai,  or  spear,  wouldn't  he? 
The  poor  kaffir  who  never  heard  of  money,  but  who  had 
the  simple  weapons  with  which  to  hunt  for  food,  would 
be  the  richer  man  of  the  two,  wouldn't  he? 

I  think  you  will  find  it  useful,  Jonathan,  to  read  a  little 
book  by  John  Ruskin,  called  Unto  This  Last.  It  is  a  very 
small  book,  written  in  very  simple  and  beautiful  lan- 
guage. Mr.  Ruskin  was  a  somewhat  whimsical  writer, 
and  there  are  some  things  in  the  book  which  I  do  not 
wholly  agree  with,  but  upon  the  whole  it  is  sane,  strong 
and  eternally  true.  He  shows  very  clearly,  according 
to  my  notion,  that  the  mere  possession  of  things,  or  of 
money,  is  not  wealth,  but  that  ivealth  consists  in  the  pos- 
session of  things  useful  to  us.  That  is  why  the  posses- 
sion of  heaps  of  gold  by  a  man  living  alone  upon  a  desert 
island  does  not  make  him  wealthy,  and  why  Robinsor 
Crusoe,  with  weapons,  tools  and  an  abundant  food  sup-^ 
ply,  was  really  a  wealthy  man,  though  he  had  not  a 
dollar. 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED   AND   DISTRIBUTED        29 

In  a  primitive  state  of  society,  then,  he  is  poor  who  has 
not  enough  of  the  things  useful  to  him,  and  he  who  has 
them  in  abundance  is  rich,  or  wealthy. 

Note  that  I  say  this  of  "  A  primitive  state  of  society," 
Jonathan,  for  that  is  most  important.  It  is  not  true  of 
our  present  capitalist  state  of  society.  This  may  seem 
a  strange  proposition  to  you  at  first,  but  a  little  careful 
thought  will  convince  you  that  it  is  true. 

Consider  a  moment :  Mr.  Carnegie  is  a  wealthy  man 
and  Mr,  Rockefeller  is  a  wealthy  man.  They  are,  each 
of  them,  richer  than  most  of  the  princes  and  kings  whose 
wealth  astonished  the  ancient  world.  Mr.  Carnegie 
owns  shares  in  many  companies,  steelmaking  companies, 
railway  companies,  and  so  on.  Mr.  Rockefeller  owns 
shares  in  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  in  railways,  coal 
mines,  and  so  on.  But  Mr.  Carnegie  does  not  personally 
use  any  of  the  steel  ingots  made  in  the  works  in  which 
he  owns  shares.  He  uses  practically  no  steel  at  all,  ex- 
cept a  knife  or  two.  Mr.  Rockefeller  does  not  use  the 
oil-wells  he  owns,  nor  a  hundred-millionth  part  of  the 
coal  his  shares  in  coal-mines  represent. 

If  one  could  get  Mr.  Carnegie  into  one  of  the  works 
in  which  he  is  interested  and  stand  with  him  in  front  of 
one  of  the  great  furnaces  as  it  poured  forth  its  stream 
of  molten  metal,  he  might  say :  "  See !  that  is  partly 
mine.  It  is  part  of  my  wealth !  "  Then,  if  one  were  to 
ask  "  But  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  that  steel,  Mr. 
Carnegie  —  is  it  useful  to  you  ?  "  Mr.  Carnegie  would 
laugh  at  the  thought.  He  would  probably  reply,  "  No, 
bless  your  life!  The  steel  is  useless  to  me.  I  don't 
want  it.  But  somebody  else  does.  It  is  useful  to  other 
people" 

Ask  Mr.  Rockefeller,  "  Is  this  oil  refinery  your  prop- 
erty, Mr.  Rockefeller  ?  "  and  he  would  reply :    "  It  is 


30  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

partly  mine.  I  own  a  big  share  in  it  and  it  represents 
part  of  my  wealth."  Ask  him  next:  "  But,  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller, what  are  you  going  to  do  with  all  that  oil  ?  Surely, 
you  cannot  need  so  much  oil  for  your  own  use?"  and 
he,  like  Air.  Carnegie,  would  reply:  "No!  The  oil  is 
useless  to  me.  I  don't  want  it.  But  somebody  else  does. 
It  is  useful  to  other  people.'" 

To  be  rich  in  our  present  social  state,  Jonathan,  you 
must  not  only  own  an  abundance  of  things  useful  to  you, 
but  also  things  useful  only  to  others,  which  you  can  sell 
to  them  at  a  profit.  Wealth,  in  our  present  society,  then 
consists  in  the  possession  of  things  having  an  exchange 
value  —  things  which  other  people  will  buy  from  you. 
So  endeth  our  first  lesson  in  political  economy. 

And  here  beginneth  our  second  lesson,  Jonathan.  We 
must  now  consider  how  wealth  is  produced. 

The  Socialists  say  that  all  wealth  is  produced  by  labor 
applied  to  natural  resources.  That  is  a  very  simple  an- 
swer, which  you  can  easily  remember.  But  I  want  you 
to  examine  it  well.  Think  it  over :  ask  yourself  whether 
anything  in  your  experience  as  a  workingman  confirms 
or  disproves  it.  Do  you  produce  wealth  ?  Do  your  fel- 
low workers  produce  wealth?  Do  you  know  of  any 
other  way  in  which  wealth  can  be  produced  than  by  labor 
applied  to  natural  resources?  Don't  be  fooled  Jona- 
than.   Think  for  yourself! 

The  wealth  of  a  fisherman  consists  in  an  abundance 
of  fish  for  which  there  is  a  good  market.  But  suppose 
there  is  a  big  demand  for  fish  in  the  cities  and  that,  at 
the  same  time,  there  are  millions  of  fish  in  the  sea,  ready 
to  be  caught.  So  long  as  they  are  in  the  sea,  the  fish 
are  not  wealth.  Even  if  the  sea  belonged  to  a  private 
individual,  as  the  oil-wells  belong  to  Mr.  Rockefeller 
and  a  few  other  individuals,  nobody  would  be  any  the  bet- 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED   AND   DISTRIBUTED        3 1 

ter  off.  Fish  in  the  sea  are  not  wealth,  but  fish  in  the 
market-places  are.  Why,  because  labor  has  been  ex- 
pended in  catching  them  and  bringing  them  to  market. 

There  are  millions  of  tons  of  coal  in  Pennsylvania. 
President  Baer  said,  you  will  remember,  that  God  had 
appointed  him  and  a  few  other  gentlemen  to  look  after 
that  coal,  to  act  as  His  trustees.  And  Mr.  Baer  wasn't 
joking,  either.  That  is  the  funny  part  of  the  story:  he 
was  actually  serious  when  he  uttered  that  foolish  blas- 
phemy! There  are  also  millions  of  people  who  want 
coal,  whose  very  lives  depend  upon  it.  People  who  will 
pay  almost  any  price  for  it  rather  than  go  without  it. 

The  coal  is  there,  millions  of  tons  of  it.  But  sup- 
pose that  nobody  digs  for  it ;  that  the  coal  is  left  where 
Nature  produced  it,  or  where  God  placed  it,  whichever 
description  you  prefer?  Do  you  think  it  would  do  any- 
body any  good  lying  there,  just  as  it  lay  untouched  when 
the  Indian  roved  through  the  forests  ignorant  of  its 
presence?  Would  anybody  be  wealthier  on  account  of 
the  coal  being  there?  Of  course  not.  It  only  becomes 
wealth  when  somebody's  labor  makes  it  available.  Every 
dollar  of  the  wealth  of  our  coal-mining  industry,  as  of 
the  fishing  industries,  represents  human  labor. 

I  need  not  go  through  the  list  of  all  our  industries, 
Jonathan,  to  make  this  truth  clear  to  you.  If  it  pleases 
you  to  do  so,  you  can  easily  do  that  for  yourself.  I 
simply  wanted  to  make  it  clear  that  the  Socialists  are 
stating  a  great  universal  truth  when  they  say  that  labor 
applied  to  natural  resources  is  the  true  source  of  all 
wealth.  As  Sir  William  Petty  said  long  ago :  "  Labor 
is  the  father  and  land  is  the  mother  of  all  wealth." 

But  you  must  be  careful,  Jonathan,  not  to  misuse  that 
word  "  labor."  Socialists  don't  mean  the  labor  of  the 
hands  only  when  they  speak  of  labor.     Take  the  case  of 


32  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

the  coal-mines  again,  just  for  a  moment:  There  are  men 
who  dig  the  coal,  called  miners.  But  before  they  can 
work  there  must  be  other  men  to  make  tools  and  machin- 
ery for  them.  And  before  there  can  be  machinery  made 
and  fixed  in  its  proper  place  there  must  be  surveyors  and 
engineers,  men  with  a  special  education  and  capacity,  to 
draw  the  plans,  and  so  on.  Then  there  must  be  some 
men  to  organize  the  business,  to  take  orders  for  the 
coal,  to  see  that  it  is  shipped,  to  collect  the  payment 
agreed  upon,  so  that  the  workers  can  be  paid,  and  so  on 
through  a  long  list  of  things  requiring  mental  labor. 

Both  kinds  of  labor  are  equally  necessary,  and  no  one 
but  a  fool  would  ever  think  otherwise.  No  Socialist 
writer  or  lecturer  ever  said  that  wealth  was  produced  by 
manual  labor  alone  applied  to  natural  resources.  And 
yet,  I  hardly  ever  pick  up  a  book  or  newspaper  article 
written  against  Socialism  in  which  that  is  not  charged 
against  the  Socialists !  The  opponents  of  Socialism  all 
seem  to   be   lineal   descendants   of   Ananias,   Jonathan ! 

For  your  special,  personal  benefit  I  want  to  cite  just 
one  instance  of  this  misrepresentation.  You  have  heard, 
I  have  no  doubt,  of  the  English  gentleman,  Mr.  W.  H. 
Mallock,  who  came  to  this  country  last  year  to  lecture 
against  Socialism.  He  is  a  very  pleasant  fellow,  per- 
sonally —  as  pleasant  a  fellow  as  a  confirmed  aristocrat 
who  does  not  like  to  ride  in  the  street  cars  with  "  common 
people  "  can  be.  Mr.  Mallock  was  hired  by  the  Civic 
Federation  and  paid  out  of  funds  which  Mr.  August 
Belmont  contributed  to  that  body,  funds  which  did  not 
belong  to  Mr.  Belmont,  as  the  investigation  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  New  York  Traction  Companies  conducted 
later  by  the  Hon.  W.  M.  Ivins,  showed.  He  was  hired  to 
lecture  against  Socialism  in  our  great  universities  and 
colleges,   in   the   interests  of  people  like   Mr.   Belmont. 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED    AND   DISTRIBUTED       33 

And  there  was  not  one  of  those  universities  or  colleges 
fair  enough  to  say :  "  We  want  to  hear  the  Socialist  side 
of  the  argument !  "  I  don't  think  the  word  "  fairplay," 
about  which  we  used  to  boast  as  one  of  the  glories  of 
our  language,  is  very  much  liked  or  used  in  American 
universities,  Jonathan.  And  I  am  very  sorry.  It  ought 
not  to  be  so. 

I  should  have  been  very  glad  to  answer  Mr.  Mallock's 
silly  and  unjust  attacks;  to  say  to  the  professors  and 
students  in  the  universities  and  colleges :  *'  I  want  you 
to  listen  to  our  side  of  the  argument  and  then  make  up 
your  minds  whether  we  are  right  or  whether  truth  is  on 
the  side  of  Mr.  Mallock."  That  would  have  been  fair 
and  honest  and  manly,  wouldn't  it?  There  were  several 
other  Socialist  lecturers,  the  equals  of  Mr.  Mallock  in 
education  and  as  public  speakers,  who  would  have  been 
ready  to  do  the  same  thing.  And  not  one  of  us  would 
have  wanted  a  cent  of  anybody's  money,  let  alone  money 
contributed  by  Mr.  August  Belmont. 

Mr.  Mallock  said  that  the  Socialists  make  the  claim 
that  manual  labor  alone  creates  wealth  when  applied  to 
natural  objects.  That  statement  is  not  true.  He  even 
dared  say  that  a  great  and  profound  thinker  like  Karl 
Marx  believed  and  taught  that  silly  notion.  The  news- 
papers of  America  hailed  Mr.  Mallock  as  the  long-looked- 
for  conqueror  of  Marx  and  his  followers.  They  thought 
he  had  demoHshed  Socialism.  But  did  they  know  that 
they  were  resting  their  case  upon  a  lie,  I  wonder?  That 
Marx  never  for  a  moment  believed  such  a  thing;  that 
he  went  out  of  his  way  to  explain  that  he  did  not? 

I  don't  want  you  to  try  to  read  the  works  of  Marx,  my 
friend  —  at  least,  not  yet.  Capital,  his  greatest  work,  is 
a  very  difficult  book,  in  three  large  volumes.  But  if  you 
will  go  into  the  public  library  and  get  the  first  volume  in 


34  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

English  translation,  and  turn  to  page  145,  you  will  /€a(l 
the  following  words : 

"  By  labor  power  or  capacity  for  labor  is  to  be  uiider- 
stood  the  aggregate  of  those  mental  and  physical  capa- 
bilities existing  in  a  human  being,  which  he  exercises 
when  he  produces  a  use-value  of  any  description."  * 

I  think  you  will  agree,  Jonathan,  that  that  statement 
fully  justifies  all  that  I  have  said  concerning  Mr.  Mal- 
lock.  I  think  you  will  agree,  too,  that  it  is  a  very  clear 
and  intelligible  definition,  which  any  man  of  fair  sense 
can  understand.  Now,  by  way  of  contrast,  I  want  you 
to  read  one  of  Mr.  Mallock's  definitions.  Please  bear 
in  mind  that  Mr.  Mallock  is  an  English  "  scholar,"  by 
many  regarded  as  a  very  clear  thinker.  This  is  how  he 
defines  labor : 

""  Labor  means  the  faculties  of  the  individual  applied 
to  his  oivn  labor." 

I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  find  anybody  who  could 
make  sense  out  of  that  definition,  Jonathan,  though  I 
have  submitted  it  to  a  good  many  people,  among  them 
several  college  professors.  It  does  not  mean  anything. 
The  fifty-seven  letters  contained  in  that  sentence  would 
mean  just  as  much  if  you  put  them  in  a  bag,  shook  them 
up,  and  then  put  them  on  paper  just  as  they  happened  to 
fall  out  of  the  bag.  Mr.  Mallock's  English,  his  veracity 
and  his  logic  are  all  equally  weak  and  defective. 

I  don't  think  that  Mr.  Mallock  is  worthy  of  your  con- 
sideration, Jonathan,  but  if  you  are  interested  in  read- 
ing what  he  said  about  Socialism  in  the  lectures  I  have 
been  referring  to,  they  are  published  in  a  volume  en- 
titled, A  Critical  Examination  of  Socialism.  You  can 
get  the  book  in  the  library:  they  will  be  sure  to  have  it 

*  Note :  In  the  American  edition,  published  by  Kerr,  the  page 
is  186. 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED    AND   DISTRIBUTED        35 

tberr,  because  it  is  against  Socialism.  But  I  want  you  to 
buy  a  little  book  by  Morris  Hillquit,  called  Mr.  Mallock's 
"Ability,"  and  read  it  carefully.  It  costs  only  ten  cents 
—  and  you  will  get  more  amusement  reading  the  careful 
and  scholarly  dissection  of  Mallock  than  you  could  get 
in  a  dime  show  anywhere.  If  you  will  read  my  own 
reply  to  Mr.  Mallock,  in  my  little  book  Capitalist  and 
Laborer,  I  shall  not  think  the  worse  of  you  for  doing 
so. 

Now,  let  us  look  at  the  division  of  the  wealth.  It  is 
all  produced  by  labor  of  manual  workers  and  brain  work- 
ers applied  to  natural  objects  which  no  man  made.  I  am 
not  going  to  weary  you  with  figures,  Jonathan,  because 
you  are  not  a  statistician.  I  am  going  to  take  the  sta- 
tistics and  make  them  as  simple  as  I  can  for  you  —  and 
tell  you  where  you  can  find  the  statistics  if  you  ever  feel 
inclined  to  try  your  hand  upon  them. 

But  first  of  all  I  want  you  to  read  a  passage  from  the 
writings  of  a  very  great  man,  who  was  not  a  "  wicked 
Socialist  agitator "  like  your  humble  servant.  Arch- 
deacon Paley,  the  great  English  theologian,  was  not  like 
many  of  our  modern  clergymen,  afraid  to  tell  the  truth 
about  social  conditions ;  he  was  not  forgetful  of  the  social 
aspects  of  Christ's  teaching.  Among  many  profoundly 
wise  utterances  about  social  conditions  which  that  great 
and  good  teacher  made  more  than  a  century  ago  was  the 
passage  I  now  want  you  to  read  and  ponder  over.  You 
might  do  much  worse  than  to  commit  the  whole  passage 
to  memory.    It  reads : 

"  If  you  should  see  a  flock  ot'  pigeons  in  a  field  of  corn,  and 
if  (instead  of  each  picking  where  and  what  it  liked,  taking  just 
as  much  as  it  wanted,  and  no  more)  you  should  see  ninety- 
nine  of  them  gathering  all  they  got  into  a  heap,  reserving  noth- 
ing for  themselves  but  the  chaff  and  the  refuse,  keeping  this 


36  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

heap  for  one,  and  that  the  weakest,  perhaps  worst,  pigeon  of 
the  flock,  sitting  round  and  looking  on,  all  the  winter,  whilst 
this  one  was  devouring,  throwing  about  and  wasting  it ;  and  if 
a  pigeon,  more  hardy  or  hungry  than  the  rest,  touched  a  grain 
of  the  hoard,  all  the  others  instantly  flying  upon  it,  and  tearing 
it  to  pieces ;  if  you  should  see  this,  you  would  see  nothing  more 
than  what  is  every  day  practised  and  established  among  men 
"  Among  men  you  see  the  ninety-and-nine  toiling  and  scraping 
together  a  heap  of  superfluities  for  one  (and  this  one,  too, 
oftentimes  the  feeblest  and  worst  of  the  set,  a  child,  a  woman, 
a  madman  or  a  fool),  getting  nothing  for  themselves,  all  the 
while,  but  a  little  of  the  coarsest  of  the  provision  which  their 
own  industry  produces ;  looking  quietly  on,  while  they  see  the 
fruits  of  all  their  labor  spent  or  spoiled;  and  if  one  of  their 
number  take  or  touch  a  particle  of  the  hoard,  the  others  join- 
ing against  him,  and  hanging  him  for  theft." 

If  there  were  many  men  like  Dr.  Paley  in  our  Amer- 
ican churches  to-day,  preaching  the  truth  in  that  fearless 
fashion,  there  would  be  something  Hke  a  revolution, 
Jonathan.  The  churches  would  no  longer  be  empty  al- 
most ;  preachers  would  not  be  wondering  why  working- 
men  don't  go  to  church.  There  would  probably  be  less 
show  and  pride  in  the  churches ;  less  preachers  paid  big 
salaries,  less  fashionable  choirs.  But  the  churches  would 
be  much  nearer  to  the  spirit  and  standard  of  Jesus  than 
most  of  them  are  to-day.  There  is  nothing  in  connection 
with  modern  religious  life  quite  so  glaring  as  the  infi- 
delity of  the  Christian  ministry  to  the  teachings  of 
Christ. 

A  lady  once  addressed  Thomas  Carlyle  concerning 
Jesus  in  this  fashion :  "  How  delighted  we  should  all 
be  to  throw  open  our  doors  to  him  and  listen  to  his 
divine  precepts!  Don't  you  think  so,  Mr.  Carlyle?" 
The  bluff  old  puritan  sage  answered :  "  No,  madam.  T 
don't.  I  think  if  he  had  come  fashionably  dressed,  with 
plenty  of  money,  and  preaching  doctrines  palatable  to 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED   AND   DISTRIBUTED        'SJ 

the  higher  orders,  I  might  have  had  the  honor  of  re- 
ceiving from  you  a  card  of  invitation,  on  the  back  of 
which  would  be  written,  '  To  meet  our  Saviour.'  But  if 
he  came  uttering  his  subHme  precepts,  and  denouncing 
the  Pharisees,  and  associating  with  pubUcans  and  the 
lower  orders,  as  he  did,  you  would  have  treated  him  as 
the  Jews  did,  and  cried  out,  '  Take  him  to  Newgate  and 
hang  him.'  " 

I  sometimes  wonder,  Jonathan,  what  really  would  hap- 
pen if  the  Carpenter-preacher  of  Gallilee  could  and  did 
visit  some  of  our  American  churches.  Would  he  be 
able  to  stand  the  vulgar  show?  Would  he  be  able  to 
listen  in  silence  to  the  miserable  perversion  of  his  teach- 
ings by  hired  apologists  of  social  wrong?  Would  he 
want  to  drive  out  the  moneychangers  and  the  Masters 
of  Bread,  to  hurl  at  them  his  terrible  thunderbolts  of 
wrath  and  scorn?  Would  he  be  welcomed  by  the 
churches  bearing  his  name?  Would  they  want  to  listen 
to  his  gospel?  Frankly,  Jonathan,  I  doubt  it.  A  few 
Socialists  would  be  found  in  nearly  every  church  ready 
to  receive  him  and  to  call  him  "  Comrade,"  but  the  ma- 
jority of  church-gxDers  would  shun  him  and  pass  him 
by. 

I  should  not  be  surprised,  Jonathan,  if  the  President 
of  the  United  States  called  him  an  "  undesirable  citizen," 
as  he  surely  would  call  Archdeacon  Paley  if  he  were 
alive. 

I  wanted  you  to  read  Paley's  illustration  of  the  pigeons 
before  going  into  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth. 
It  will  help  you  to  understand  another  illustration.  Sup- 
pose that  from  a  shipwreck  one  hundred  men  are  fortu- 
nate enough  to  save  themselves  and  to  make  their  way 
to  an  island,  where,  making  the  best  of  conditions,  they 
establish  a  little  community,  which  thejr  elect  to  call 


38  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

"  Capitalia."  Luckily,  they  have  all  got  food  and  cloth- 
ing enough  to  last  them  for  a  little  while,  and  they  are 
fortunate  enough  to  find  on  the  island  a  supply  of  tools, 
evidently  abandoned  by  some  former  occupants  of  the 
island. 

They  set  to  work,  cultivating  the  ground,  building 
huts  for  themselves,  hunting  for  game,  and  so  on.  They 
start  out  to  face  the  primeval  struggle  with  the  sullen 
forces  of  Nature  as  our  ancestors  did  in  the  time  long 
past.  Their  efforts  prosper,  every  one  of  the  hundred 
men  being  a  worker,  every  man  working  with  equal 
will,  equal  strength  and  vigor.  Now,  then,  suppose  that 
one  day,  they  decide  to  divide  up  the  wealth  produced 
by  their  labor,  to  institute  individual  property  in  place 
of  common  property,  competition  in  place  of  co-operation. 
What  would  you  think  if  two  or  three  of  the  strongest 
members  said,  "  We  will  do  the  dividing,  we  will  dis- 
tribute the  wealth  according  to  our  ideas  of  justice  and 
right,"  and  then  proceeded  to  give  55  per  cent,  of  the 
wealth  to  one  man,  to  the  next  eleven  men  32  per  cent. 
and  to  the  remaining  eighty-eight  men  only  13  per  cent, 
between  them? 

I  will  put  it  in  another  way,  Jonathan,  since  you  are 
not  accustomed  to  thinking  in  percentages.  Suppose 
that  there  were  a  hundred  cows  to  be  divided  among  the 
members  of  the  community.  According  to  the  scheme 
of  division  just  described,  this  is  how  the  division  would 
work  out: 

I  Man  would  get        55  Cows  for  himself 

II  Men  would  get        32  Cows  among  them 
88  Men  would  get         13  Cows  among  them 

When  they  had  divided  the  cows  in  this  manner  the^y 
would  proceed  to  divide  the  wheat,  the  potato  crops,  the 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    PRODUCED    AND   DISTRIBUTED         39 

land,  and  everything  else  owned  by  the  community  in 
the  same  unequal  way.  I  ask  you  again,  Jonathan,  what 
would  you  think  of  such  a  division? 

Of  course,  being  a  fair-minded  man,  endowed  with 
ordinary  intelligence  at  least,  you  will  admit  that  there 
would  be  no  sense  and  no  justice  in  such  a  plan  of 
division,  and  you  doubt  if  intelligent  human  beings  would 
submit  to  it.  But,  my  friend,  that  is  not  quite  so  bad  as 
the  distribution  of  wealth  in  America  to-day  is.  Suppose 
that  instead  of  all  the  members  of  the  little  island  com- 
munity being  workers,  all  working  equally  hard,  fairly 
sharing  the  work  of  the  community,  one  man  absolutely 
refused  to  do  anything  at  all,  saying,  "  I  was  the  first  one 
to  get  ashore.  The  land  really  belongs  to  me.  I  am  the 
landlord.  I  won't  work,  but  you  must  work  for  me." 
And  suppose  that  eleven  other  men  said  in  like  manner. 
"  We  won't  work.  We  found  the  tools,  we  brought  the 
seeds  and  the  food  out  of  the  boats  when  we  came.  We 
are  the  capitalists  and  you  must  do  the  work  in  the  fields. 
We  will  superintend  you,  give  you  orders  where  to  dig, 
and  when,  and  where  to  stop.  You  eighty-eight  common 
fellows  are  the  laborers  who  must  do  the  hard  work 
while  we  use  our  brains."  And  suppose  that  they  actu- 
ally carried  out  that  plan  and  then  divided  the  wealth  in 
the  way  I  have  described,  that  would  be  a  pretty  good 
illustration  of  how  the  wealth  produced  in  America  un- 
der our  existing  social  system  is  divided. 

And  I  ask  yon  what  you  think  of  that,  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards.    How  do  you  like  iff 

These  are  not  my  figures.  They  are  not  the  figures  of 
any  rabid  Socialist  making  frenzied  guesses.  They  are 
taken  from  a  book  called  The  Present  Distribution  of 
Wealth  in  the  United  States,  by  the  late  Dr.  Charles  B. 
Spahr,  a  book  that  is  used  in  most  of  our  colleges  and 


40 


COMMON   SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 


universities.  No  serious  criticism  of  the  figures  has  ever 
been  attempted  and  most  economists,  even  the  conserva- 
tive ones,  base  their  own  estimates  upon  Spahr's  work. 
It  would  be  worth  your  while  to  get  the  book  from  the 
library,  Jonathan,  and  to  read  it  carefully. 

In  the  meantime,  look  over  the  following  table  which 
sets  forth  the  results  of  Dr.  Spahr's  investigation,  Jona- 
than, and  remember  that  the  condition  of  things  has  not 
improved  since  1895,  when  the  book  was  written,  but 
that  they  have,  on  the  contrary,  very  much  worsened. 

SPAHR'S   TABLE   OF  THE   DISTRIBUTION   OF 
WEALTH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Class 

No.  of 
Families 

Per 

Cent 

Average 
Wealth 

Aggregate 
Weahh 

Per 
Cent 

Rich  

Middle  ... 

Poor 

Very  Poor. 

125,000 
1.362,500 
4,762,500 
6,250,000 

I.O 

10.9 

38.1 
50.0 

$263,040 

14,180 

1.639 

32,880,000,000 

29,320,000,000 

7,800,000,000 

54.8 
32.2 
130 

Total .... 

13,500,000 

1 00.0 

$4,800 

$60,000,000,000 

1 00.0 

Now,  Jonathan,  although  I  have  taken  a  good  deal  of 
trouble  to  lay  these  figures  before  you,  I  really  don't  care 
very  much  for  them.  Statistics  don't  impress  me  as  they 
do  some  people,  and  I  would  far  rather  rely  upon  your 
commonsense  than  upon  any  figures.  I  have  not  quoted 
these  figures  because  they  were  published  by  a  very  able 
scholar  in  a  very  wise  book,  nor  because  scientific  men, 
professors  of  political  economy  and  others,  have  accepted 
them  as  a  fair  estimate.  I  have  used  them  because  I 
believe  them  to  be  true  and  reliable. 

But  don't  you  rest  your  whole  faith  upon  them,  Jona- 


HOW    WEALTH    IS    TRODUCED   AND   DISTRIBUTED       4I 

than.  If  some  fine  day  a  Republican  spellbinder,  or  a 
Democratic  scribbler,  tries  to  upset  you  and  prove  that 
Socialists  are  all  liars  and  false  prophets,  just  tell  him  the 
figures  are  quite  unimportant  to  you,  that  you  don't  care 
to  know  just  exactly  how  much  of  the  wealth  the  rich- 
est one  per  cent,  gets  and  how  little  of  it  the  poorest 
fifty  per  cent.  gets.  A  few  millions  more  or  less  don't 
trouble  you.  Pin  him  down  to  the  one  fact  which  your 
own  commonsense  teaches  you,  that  the  wealth  of  the 
country  is  unequally  distributed.  Tell  him  that  you 
knozi',  regardless  of  figures,  that  there  are  many  idlers 
who  are  enormously  rich  and  many  honest,  industrious 
workers  who  are  miserably  poor.  He  won't  be  able  to 
deny  these  things.     He  dare  not,  because  they  are  true. 

Ask  any  such  apologist  for  capitalism  what  he  would 
think  of  the  father  or  mother  who  took  his  or  her 
eight  children  and  said :  "  Here  are  eight  cakes,  as 
many  cakes  as  there  are  boys  and  girls.  I  am  going 
to  distribute  the  cakes.  Here,  Walter,  are  seven  of  the 
cakes  for  you.  The  other  cake  the  rest  of  you  can  di- 
vide among  yourselves  as  best  you  can."  If  the  capital- 
ist defender  is  a  fair-minded  man,  if  he  is  neither  fool 
nor  liar  nor  monster,  he  will  agree  that  such  a  parent 
would  be  brutally  unjust. 

Yet,  Jonathan,  that  is  exactly  how  our  national  wealth 
is  divided  up.  One-eighth  of  the  families  in  the  United 
States  do  get  seven-eights  of  the  wealth,  and,  being,  I 
hope,  neither  fool,  liar  nor  monster,  I  denounce  the  sys- 
tem as  brutally  unjust.  There  is  no  sense  and  no  mor- 
ality in  mincing  i.iatters  and  being  afraid  to  call  spades 
spades. 

It  is  because  of  this  unjust  distribution  of  the  wealth 
of  modern  society  that  we  have  so  much  social  unrest. 
That  is  the  heart  of  the  whole  problem.     Why  are  work- 


42  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

ingmen  organized  into  unions  to  fight  the  capitalists,  and 
the  capitalists  on  their  side  organized  to  fight  the 
workers?  Why,  simply  because  the  capitalists  want  to 
continue  exploiting  the  workers,  to  exploit  them  still 
more  if  possible,  while  the  workers  want  to  be  exploited 
less,  want  to  get  more  of  what  they  produce. 

Why  is  it  that  eminently  respectable  members  of  so- 
ciety combine  to  bribe  legislators  —  to  buy  laws  from  the 
laivmakers!  —  and  to  corrupt  the  republic,  a  form  of 
treason  worse  than  Benedict  Arnold's?  Why,  for  the 
same  reason :  they  want  to  continue  the  spoliation  of  the 
people.  That  is  why  the  heads  of  a  great  life  insurance 
company  illegally  used  the  funds  belonging  to  widows 
and  orphans  to  contribute  to  the  campaign  fund  of  the 
Republican  Party  in  1904.  That  is  why,  also,  Mr.  Bel- 
mont used  the  funds  of  the  traction  company  of  which 
he  is  president  to  support  the  Civic  Federation,  which  is 
an  organization  specially  designed  to  fool  and  mislead 
the  wage-earners  of  America.  That  is  why  every  investi- 
gation of  American  political  or  business  life  that  is  hon- 
estly made  by  able  and  fearless  men  reveals  so  much 
chicanery  and  fraud. 

You  belong  to  a  union,  Jonathan,  because  you  want  to 
put  a  check  upon  the  greed  of  the  employers.  But  you 
never  can  expect  through  the  union  to  get  all  that  right- 
fully belongs  to  you.  It  is  impossible  to  expect  that  the 
union  will  ever  do  away  with  the  terrible  inequalities  in 
the  distribution  of  wealth.  The  union  is  a  good  thing, 
and  the  workers  ought  to  be  much  more  thoroughly  or- 
ganized into  unions  than  they  are.  Socialists  are  al- 
ways on  the  side  of  the  union  when  it  is  engaged  in  an 
honest  fight  against  the  exploiters  of  labor. 

Later  on,  I  shall  take  up  the  question  of  unionism  and 
discuss  it  with  you,  Jonathan,     Meanwhile,  I  want  to 


HOW   WEALTH    IS   PRODUCED   AND  DISTRIBUTED       43 

impress  upon  your  mind  that  a  zvise  union  man  votes  as 
he  strikes.  There  is  not  the  least  bit  of  sense  in  belong.- 
ing  to  a  union  if  you  are  to  become  a  "  scab  "  when  you 
go  to  the  ballot-box.  And  a  vote  for  a  capitalist  party 
is  a  scab  iHJte,  Jonathan. 


V 

THE    DRONES   AND  THE    BEES 

Hitherto  it  is  questionable  if  all  the  mechanical  inventions 
yet  made  have  lightened  the  day's  toil  of  any  human  being. 
They  have  enabled  a  greater  population  to  live  the  same  life 
of  drudgery  and  imprisonment,  and  an  increased  number  ot 
manufactures,  and  others,  to  make  large  fortunes. —  John  Stnarl 
Mill. 

Most  people  imagine  that  the  rich  are  in  heaven,  but  as  a 
rule  it  is  only  a  gilded  hell.  There  is  not  a  man  in  the  city 
of  New  York  with  brains  enough  to  own  five  millions  of  dol- 
lars. Why?  The  money  will  own  him.  He  becomes  the  key 
to  a  safe.  That  money  will  get  him  up  at  daylight;  that  money 
will  separate  him  from  his  friends ;  that  money  will  fill  his 
heart  with  fear ;  that  money  will  rob  his  days  of  sunshine  and 
his  nights  of  pleasant  dreams.  He  becomes  the  property  of  that 
money.  And  he  goes  right  on  making  more.  What  for?  He 
does  not  know.  It  becomes  a  kind  of  insanity. —  R.  G.  Ingersoll. 
Is  it  well  that,  while  we  range   with   Science,  glorying  in  the 

time, 
City  children  soak  and  blacken  soul  and  sense  in  City  slime? 
There,  among  the  gloomy  alleys,  Progress  halts  on  palsied  feet, 
Crime  and  Hunger  cast   our  maidens  by  the   thousand  on  the 

street. 
There  the  master  scrimps   his  haggard  seamstress  of  her  daily 

bread. 
There  a  single  sordid  attic  holds  the  living  and  the  dead; 
There   the   smouldering    fire  of   fever   creeps    across    the    rotted 

floor, 
In  the  crowded  couch  of  incest,  in  the  warrens  of  the  poor. — 

Tennyson. 

When  you  and  I  v^'ere  boys  going  to  school,  friend 
Jonathan,  we  were  constantly  admonished  to  study  with 

44 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE   UEES  45 

admiration  the  social  economy  of  the  bees.  We  learned 
to  almost  reverence  the  little  winged  creatures  for  the 
manner  in  which  they 

Improve  each  shining  hour, 
And  gather  honey  all  the  day 
From  every  opening  flower. 

We  were  taught,  you  remember,  to  honor  the  bees 
for  their  hatred  of  drones.  It  was  the  great  virtue  oi 
the  bees  that  they  ahvays  drove  the  drones  from  the  hive. 
For  my  part,  I  learned  the  lesson  so  well  that  I  really 
became  a  sort  of  bee-worshipper.  But  since  I  have 
grown  to  mature  years  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  those  old  lessons  were  not  honestly  meant,  Jonathan. 
For  if  anybody  proposes  to-day  that  we  should  drive  out 
the  drones  from  the  human  hive,  he  is  at  once  denounced 
as  an  Anarchist  and  an  "undesirable  citizen." 

It  is  all  very  well  for  bees  to  insist  that  there  must  be 
no  idle  parasites,  that  the  drones  must  go,  but  for  hu- 
man beings  such  a  policy  won't  do !  It  savors  too  much 
of  Socialism,  my  friend,  and  is  unpleasantly  like  Paul's 
foolish  saying  that  "  If  any  man  among  you  will  not 
work,  neither  shall  he  eat."  That  is  a  text  which  is  out 
of  date  and  unsuited  to  the  twentieth  century ! 

"  Allah !    Allah  !  "    cried    the    stranger, 

"  Wondrous  sights  the  traveller  sees ; 
But  the  greatest  is  the  latest, 
Where  the  drones  control  the  bees !  " 

Every  modern  civilized  nation  rewards  its  drones  bet- 
ter than  it  rewards  its  bees,  and  in  every  land  the  drones 
control  the  bees. 

I  want  you  to  consider,  friend  Jonathan,  the  lives  oi 
the  people.     How  the  workers  live  and  how  the  shirkefs 


46  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

live ;  now  the  bees  live  and  how  the  drones  live,  if  you 
like  tnat  Deiter.  You  can  study  the  matter  for  your- 
self, right  in  Pittsburg,  much  better  than  you  can  from 
books,  for  God  knows  that  in  Pittsburg  there  are  the 
extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty,  just  as  there  are  in 
New  York,  Chicago,  St.  Louis  or  San  Francisco.  There 
are  gilded  hells  where  rich  drones  live  and  squalid  hells 
where  poor  bees  live,  and  the  number  of  truly  happy 
people  is  sadly,  terribly,  small. 

Ten  millions  in  poverty!  Don't  you  think  that  is  a 
cry  so  terrible  that  it  ought  to  shame  a  great  nation  like 
this,  a  nation  more  bounteously  endowed  by  Nature  than 
any  other  nation  in  the  world's  history?  Men,  women 
and  children,  poor  and  miserable,  with  not  enough  to 
eat,  nor  clothes  to  keep  them  warm  in  the  cold  winter 
nights ;  with  places  for  homes  that  are  unfit  for  dogs, 
and  these  not  their  own ;  knowing  not  if  to-morrow  may 
bring  upon  them  the  last  crushing  blow.  All  these  con- 
ditions, and  conditions  infinitely  worse  than  these,  are 
contained  in  the  poverty  of  those  millions,  Jonathan. 

If  people  were  poor  because  the  land  was  poor,  be- 
cause the  country  was  barren,  because  Nature  dealt  with 
us  in  niggardly  fashion,  so  that  all  men  had  to  struggle 
against  famine ;  if,  in  a  word,  there  was  democracy  in 
our  poverty,  so  that  none  were  idle  and  rich  while  the 
rest  toiled  in  poverty,  it  would  be  our  supreme  glory  to 
bear  it  with  cheerful  courage.  But  that  is  not  the  case. 
While  babies  perish  for  want  of  food  and  care  in  dank 
and  unhealthy  hovels,  there  are  pampered  poodles  in 
palaces,  beieweled  and  cared  for  by  liveried  flunkies  and 
waiting  maids.  While  men  and  women  want  bread,  and 
beg  crusts,  or  stand  shivering  in  the  "  bread  lines  "  of 
our  great  cities,  there  are  monkeys  being  banqueted 
at  costly  banquets  by  the  profligate  degenerates  of  riches. 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE   BEES  47 

It's  all  wrong,  Jonathan,  cruelly,  shainexully,  hellishly 
wrong!  And  I  for  one,  refuse  to  call  such  a  brutalized 
system,  or  the  nation  tolerating  it,  cimlized. 

Good  old  Thomas  Carlyle  would  say  "  Amen !  ''  to 
that,  Jonathan.  Lots  of  people  wont.  They  will  tell 
you  that  the  poverty  of  the  millions  is  very  sad,  of 
course,  and  that  the  poor  are  to  be  pitied.  But  they  will 
remind  you  that  Jesus  said  something  about  the  poor 
always  being  with  us.  They  won't  read  you  what  he 
did  say,  but  you  can  read  it  for  yourself.  Here  it  is : 
"  For  ye  have  the  poor  always  with  you,  and  whensoever 
ye  will  ye  can  do  them  good."  *  And  now,  I  want  you 
to  read  a  quotation  from  Carlyle: 

"  It  is  not  to  die,  or  even  to  die  of  hunger,  that  makes  a  man 
wretched ;  many  men  have  died ;  all  mcii,  must  die, —  the  last 
exit  of  us  all  is  in  a  Fire-Chariot  of  Pain.  But  it  is  to  live 
miserable  we  know  not  why ;  to  work  sore  and  yet  gain  nothing ; 
to  be  heart-worn,  weary,  yet  isolated,  unrelated,  girt-in  with  a 
cold  universal  Laissezfaire :  it  is  to  die  slowly  all  our  life  long, 
imprisoned  in  a  deaf,  dead,  Infinite  Injustice,  as  in  the  accursed 
iron  belly  of  a  Phalaris'  Bull!  This  is  and  remains  forever 
intolerable  to  all  men  whom  God  has  made." 

"  Miserable  we  know  not  why  " — "  to  die  slowly  all 
our  life  long  " — "  Imprisoned  in  a  deaf,  dead.  Infinite 
Injustice  " —  Don't  these  phrases  describe  exactly  the 
poverty  you  have  known,  brother  Jonathan? 

Did  you  ever  stop  to  think,  my  friend,  that  poverty  is 
the  lot  of  the  average  worker,  the  reward  of  the  pro- 
ducers of  wealth,  and  that  only  the  producers  of  wealth 
are  poor?  Do  you  know  that,  because  we  die  slowly  all 
our  Hves  long,  the  death-rate  among  the  working-class  is 
far  higher  than  among  other  classes  by  reason  of  over- 

*Mark  14:7. 


48 


COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 


work,  anxiety,  poor  food,  lack  of  pleasure,  bad  housing, 
and  all  the  other  ills  comprehended  in  the  lot  of  the  wage- 
worker?  In  Chicago,  for  example,  in  the  wards  where 
the  well-to-do  reside  the  death-rate  is  not  more  than 
12  per  thousand,  while  it  is  37  in  the  tenement  districts. 
Scientists  who  have  gone  into  the  matter  tell  us  that 
of  ten  million  persons  belonging  to  the  well-to-do  classes 
the  annual  deaths  do  not  number  more  than  100,000, 
while  among  the  very  best  paid  workers  the  number  is 
not  less  than  150,000  and  among  the  very  poorest  paid 
workers  at  least  350,000.  To  show  you  just  what  those 
proportions  are,  I  have  represented  the  matter  in  a  little 
diagram,  which  you  can  understand  at  a  glance: 

DIAGRAM 

Showing  Relative  Death-Rate  Among  Persons  of  Differ- 
ent Social  Classes. 


m 


^ 


Well-to-do  Class, 


^ 


m 


m 


Best  Paid  WorfterB. 


Worst  Paid  Workers. 


There  are  some  diseases,  notably  the  Great  White 
Plague,  Consumption,  which  we  call  "  diseases  of  the 
working-classes  "  on  account  of  the  fact  that  they  prey 
most  upon  the  wearied,  ill-nourished  bodies  of  the  work- 
ers. Not  that  they  are  confined  to  the  workers  entirely, 
but  because  the  workers  are  most  afflicted  bv  them.     Be- 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE    BEES 


49 


cause  the  workers  live  in  crowded  tenement  hovels,  work 
in  factories  laden  with  dust  and  disease  germs,  are  over- 
worked and  badly  fed,  this  and  other  of  the  great 
scourges  of  the  human  race  find  them  ready  victims. 

Here  is  another  diagram  for  you,  Jonathan,  showing 
the  comparative. mortality  from  Consumption  among  the 
workers  engaged  in  six  different  industrial  occupations 
and  the  members  of  six  groups  of  professional  workers. 


DIAGRAM 
Showing  Relative  Mortality  From  Tuberculosis. 

Marble  and  stone  cutters. 

Cigar  makers  and  tobacco 
workers. 
Compositors,  printers,  pressmen. 

Barbers  and  hairdressers. 

Masons  (brick  and  stone). 

Iron  and  steel  workers. 

Physicians  and  Surgeons. 

Engineers  and  Surveyors. 

School  teachers. 

Lawyers. 

Clergymen. 

Bankers,  brokers,  officials  of  companies,  etc. 

I  want  you  to  study  this  diagram  and  the  figures  by 
which  it  is  accompanied,  Jonathan.  You  will  observe 
that  the  death  rate  from  Consumption  among  marble 
and  stone  cutters  is  six  times  greater  than  among  bank- 
ers and  brokers  and  directors  of  companies.  Among 
cigar  makers  and  tobacco  workers  it  is  more  than  five 


50  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

times  as  great.  Iron  and  steel  workers  do  not  suffer  so 
much  from  the  plague  as  some  other  workers,  according 
to  the  death-rates.  One  reason  is  that  only  fairly  robust 
men  enter  the  trade  to  begin  with.  Another  reason  is 
that  a  great  many,  finding  they  cannot  stand  the  strain, 
after  they  have  become  infected,  leave  the  trade  for 
lighter  occupations.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  true  mortality  from  Consumption  among  iron  and 
steel  workers  is  much  higher  than  the  figures  show. 
But,  taking  the  figures  as  they  are,  confident  that  they 
understate  the  extent  of  the  ravages  of  the  disease  in 
these  occupations,  we  find  that  the  mortality  is  more 
than  two  and  a  half  times  greater  than  among  capitalists. 
Now,  these  are  very  serious  figures,  Jonathan.  Why 
is  the  mortality  so  much  less  among  the  capitalists  ?  It  is 
because  they  have  better  homes,  are  not  so  overworked 
to  physical  exhaustion,  are  better  fed  and  clothed,  and 
can  have  better  care  and  attention,  far  better  chances  of 
being  cured,  if  they  are  attacked.  They  can  get  these 
things  only  from  the  labor  of  the  workers,  Jonathan. 

In  other  words,  they  buy  their  lives  with  ours. 
Workers  are  killed  to  keep  capitalists  alive. 

It  used  to  be  frequently  charged  that  drink  was  the 
chief  cause  of  the  poverty  of  the  workers;  that  they 
were  poor  because  they  were  drunken  and  thriftless. 
But  we  hear  less  of  that  silly  nonsense  than  we  used  to, 
though  now  and  then  a  Prohibitionist  advocate  still  re- 
peats the  old  and  long  exploded  myth.  It  never  was 
true,  Jonathan,  and  it  is  less  true  to-day  than  ever  before. 
Drunkenness  is  an  evil  and  the  working  class  suffers 
from  it  to  a  lamentable  degree,  but  it  is  not  the  sole  cause 
of  poverty,  it  is  not  the  chief  cause  of  poverty,  it  is  not 
even  a  very  important  cause  of  poverty  at  all. 

It  is  true  that  intemperance  causes  poverty  in  some 


THE   DRONES    AND   THE   BEES  $1 

cases,  it  is  also  true  that  drunkenness  is  very  frequently 
caused  by  poverty.  They  act  and  react  upon  each  other, 
but  it  is  not  doubted  by  any  student  of  our  social  condi- 
tions whose  opinion  carries  any  weight  that  intemper- 
ance is  far  more  often  the  result  of  poverty  and  bad  con- 
ditions of  life  and  labor  than  the  cause  of  them. 

The  International  Socialist  Congress  which  met  at 
Stuttgart  last  summer  very  rightly  decided  that  Social- 
ists everywhere  should  do  all  in  their  power  to  combat 
alcohoHsm,  to  end  the  ravages  of  intemperance  among 
the  working  classes  of  all  nations.  For  drunken  voters 
are  not  very  Hkely  to  be  either  wise  or  free  voters:  we 
need  sober,  earnest,  clear-thinking  men  to  bring  about 
better  conditions,  Jonathan.  But  the  Socialists,  while 
they  adopt  this  position,  do  not  mistake  results  for 
causes.  They  know  from  actual  experience  that  Solo- 
mon was  right  when  he  attributed  intemperance  to  ill 
conditions.  Hunt  out  your  Bible  and  turn  to  the  Book 
of  Proverbs,  chapter  31,  verse  7.  There  you  will  read: 
"  Let  him  drink  and  forget  his  poverty,  and  remember 
his  misery  no  more." 

That  is  not  very  good  advice  to  give  a  workingman, 
but  it  is  exactly  what  many  workingmen  do.  There  was 
a  wise  English  bishop  who  said  a  few  years  ago  that  if 
he  lived  in  the  slums  of  any  of  the  great  cities,  under 
conditions  similar  to  those  in  which  most  of  the  workers 
live,  he  would  probably  be  a  drunkard,  and  when  I  see 
the  conditions  under  which  millions  of  men  are  working 
and  living  I  wonder  that  we  have  not  more  drunkenness 
than  we  have. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  "  General "  Booth,  head  of 
the  Salvation  Army,  declared  that  "  nine-tenths  "  of  the 
poverty  of  the  people  was  due  to  intemperance.  Later 
on,  "  Commissioner  "  Cadman,  one  of  the  "  General's  " 


52  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

most  trusted  aides,  made  an  investigation  of  the  causes 
of  poverty  among  all  those  who  passed  through  the 
Army  shelters  for  destitute  men  and  women.  He  found 
that  among  the  very  lowest  class,  the  "  submerged  tenth," 
where  the  ravages  of  drink  are  most  sadly  evident,  de- 
pression in  trade  counted  for  much  more  than  drink  as  a 
cause  of  poverty.     The  figures  were : 

Depression    in    trade 55.8  per  cent. 

Drink    and   Gambling , 26.6  per  cent. 

Ill-health , 11. 6  per  cent. 

Old  Age 5.8  per  cent. 

Even  among  the  very  lowest  class  of  the  social  wrecks 
of  our  great  cities,  who  have  long  since  abandoned  hope, 
depression  in  trade  was  found  to  count  for  more  than 
twice  as  much  as  drink  and  gambling  combined  as  a 
producer  of  poverty. 

That  is  in  keeping  with  all  the  investigations  that  have 
ever  been  made  in  a  scientific  spirit.  Professor  Amos 
Warner,  in  his  valuable  study  of  the  subject,  published  in 
his  book,  American  Charities,  shows  how  false  the  no- 
tion that  nearly  all  the  poverty  of  the  people  is  due  to 
their  intemperance  proves  to  be  when  an  intelligent  in- 
vestigation of  the  facts  is  made. 

Dr.  Edward  T.  Devine,  of  Columbia  University,  editor 
of  Charities  and  the  Commons,  is  probably  as  competent 
an  authority  upon  this  question  as  any  man  living.  He 
is  not  likely  to  be  called  a  Socialist  by  anybody.  Yet  I 
find  him  writing  in  his  magazine,  at  the  end  of  November, 
1907:  "  The  tradition  which  many  hold  that  the  condition 
of  poverty  is  ordinarily  and  as  a  matter  of  course  to  be 
explained  by  personal  faults  of  the  poor  themselves  is  no 
longer  tenable.  Strong  drink  and  vice  are  abnormal, 
unnatural  and  essentially  unattractive  ways  of  spending 


THE   DRONES    AND    THE    BEES  53 

surplus  income."  Dr.  Devine  very  frankly  and  bravely 
admits  that  poverty  is  an  unnecessary  evil,  "  a  shocking, 
loathsome  excrescence  on  the  body  politic,  an  intolerable 
evil  which  should  come  to  an  end."  What  else,  indeed, 
could  a  sane  man  think  of  it? 

As  a  conservative  man,  I  say  without  reservation  that 
accidents  incurred  in  the  course  of  employment,  and  sick- 
ness brought  on  by  industrial  conditions,  such  as  over- 
work accompanied  by  under  nourishment,  exposure  to 
extremes  of  temperature,  unsanitary  workshops  and  fac- 
tories and  the  inhalation  of  contaminated  atmosphere, 
are  far  more  important  causes  of  poverty  among  the 
workers  than  intemperance.  Every  investigation  ever 
made  goes  to  prove  this  true.  I  wish  that  every  one 
who  seeks  to  blame  the  poverty  of  the  poor  upon  the  vic- 
tims themselves  would  study  a  few  facts,  which  I  am  go- 
ing to  ask  you  to  study,  without  prejudice  or  passion. 
They  would  readily  see  then  how  false  the  belief  is. 

Last  year  there  was  a  Committee  of  very  expert  in- 
vestigators in  New  York  which  made  a  careful  inquiry 
into  the  relation  of  wages  to  the  standard  of  living. 
They  were  not  Socialists,  these  gentlemen,  or  I  should 
not  submit  their  testimony.  I  am  anxious  to  base  my 
case  against  our  present  social  system  upon  evidence  that 
is  not  in  any  way  biased  in  favor  of  Socialism.  Dr.  Lee 
K.  Frankel  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee.  He  is 
Director  of  the  United  Hebrew  Charities  of  New  York 
City,  an  able  and  sincere  man,  but  not  a  Socialist.  Dr. 
Devine,  another  able  and  sincere  man  who  is  by  no  means 
a  Socialist,  was  a  member  of  the  Committee.  Among 
the  other  members  were  also  such  persons  as  Bishop 
Greer,  of  New  York,  Reverend  Adolph  Guttman,  presi- 
dent of  the  Hebrew  Relief  Society,  Syracuse,  New  York, 
Mrs.  William  Einstein,  president  of  Emanu-El  Sisterhood, 


54  COMMOX    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

New  York ;  Mr.  Homer  Folks,  Secretary  State  Chari- 
ties Aid  Association  and  Reverend  William  J.  White,  of 
Brooklyn,  Supervisor  of  Catholic  Charities.  The  Com- 
mittee was  deputed  to  make  the  investigation  by  the  New 
York  State  Conference  of  Charities  and  Corrections, 
and  made  its  report  in  November,  1907,  at  Albany,  N.  Y. 

I  think  you  will  agree,  Jonathan,  that  it  would  be  very 
hard  to  imagine  a  more  conservative  body,  less  inoculated 
with  the  virus  of  Socialism  than  that.  From  their  re- 
port to  the  Conference  I  note  that  the  Committee  re- 
ported that  as  a  result  of  their  work,  after  going  care- 
fully into  the  expenditure  of  some  322  families,  they 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  lowest  amount  upon 
which  a  family  of  five  could  be  supported  in  decency 
and  health  in  New  York  City  was  about  eight  hundred 
dollars  a  year.  I  am  quite  sure,  Jonathan,  that  there  is 
not  one  of  the  members  of  that  Committee  who  would 
think  that  even  that  sum  would  be  enough  to  keep  their 
families  in  health  and  decency ;  not  one  who  would  want 
to  see  their  children  living  under  the  best  conditions 
which  that  sum  made  possible.  They  were  philanthrop- 
ists you  see,  Jonathan,  "  figuring  out "  how  much  the 
*'  Poor  "  ought  to  be  able  to  live  on.  And  to  help  them 
out  they  got  Professor  Chapin,  of  Beloit  College  and 
Professor  Underbill,  of  Yale.  Professor  Underbill  be- 
ing an  expert  physiological  chemist,  could  advise  them 
as  to  the  sufficiency  of  the  expenditures  upon  food 
among  the  families  reported. 

But  the  total  income  of  thousands  of  families  falls  very 
short  of  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year.  There  are  many 
thousands  of  families  in  which  the  breadwinner  does  not 
earn  more  than  ten  dollars  a  week  at  best.  Making  al- 
lowance for  time  lost  through  sickness,  holidays,  and  so 
on,  it  is  evident  that  the  total  income  of  such  families 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE   BEES  55 

would  not  exceed  four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year 
at  best.  Even  the  worker  with  twenty  dollars  a  week,  if 
there  is  a  brief  period  of  sickness  or  unemployment,  will 
find  himself,  despite  his  best  efforts,  on  the  wrong  side  of 
the  line,  compelled  either  to  see  his  family  suffer  want  or 
to  become  dependent  on  "  that  cold  thing  called  Charity." 
And  Dr.  Devine,  writing  in  Charities  and  the  Commons, 
admits  that  the  charitable  societies  cannot  hope  to  make 
up  the  deficit,  to  add  to  the  wages  of  the  workers  enough 
to  raise  their  standards  of  living  to  the  point  of  efficiency. 
He  admits  that  "  such  a  policy  would  tend  to  financial 
bankruptcy." 

Taking  the  unskilled  workers  in  New  York  City,  the 
vast  army  of  laborers,  it  is  certain  that  they  do  not 
average  $400  a  year,  so  that  they  are,  as  a  class,  hope- 
lessly, miserably  poor.  It  is  true  that  many  of  them 
spend  part  of  their  miserable  wages  on  drink,  but  if 
they  did  not,  they  would  still  be  poor ;  if  every  cent  went 
to  buy  the  necessities  of  existence,  they  would  still  be 
hopelessly,  miserably  poor. 

The  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  showed  a  few 
years  ago,  when  the  cost  of  living  was  less  than  now, 
that  a  family  of  five  could  not  live  decently  and  in  health 
upon  less  than  $754  a  year,  but  more  than  half  of  the 
unskilled  workers  in  the  shoe-making  industry  of  that 
State  got  less  than  $300  a  year.  Of  course,  some  were 
single  and  not  a  few  were  women,  but  the  figures  go  far 
to  show  that  the  New  York  conditions  are  prevalent  in 
New  England  also.  Mr.  John  Mitchell  said  that  in  the 
anthracite  district  of  Pennsylvania  it  was  impossible  to 
maintain  a  family  of  five  in  decency  on  less  than  $600 
a  year,  but  according  to  Dr.  Peter  Roberts,  who  is  one 
of  the  most  conservative  of  living  authorities  upon  the 
conditions  of  industry  in  the  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania, 


56  COMMON    SKXSl-:   OF    SOCIALISM 

the  average  wage  in  the  anthracite  district  is  less  than 
$500  and  that  about  60  per  cent,  receive  less  than  $450 
a  year. 

I  am  not  going  to  bother  you  with  more  statistics, 
Jonathan,  for  I  know  you  do  not  like  them,  and  they  are 
liard  to  remember.  What  I  want  you  to  see  is  that,  for 
many  thousands  of  workers,  poverty  is  an  inevitable  con- 
dition. If  they  do  not  spend  a  cent  on  drink ;  never  give 
a  cent  to  the  Church  or  for  charity;  never  buy  a  news- 
paper ;  never  see  a  play  or  hear  a  concert ;  never  lose 
a  day's  wages  through  sickness  or  accident ;  never  make 
a  present  of  a  ribbon  to  their  wives  or  a  toy  to  their 
children  —  in  a  word,  if  they  live  as  galley  slaves,  work- 
ing without  a  single  break  in  the  monotony  and  drudgery 
of  their  lives,  they  must  still  be  poor  and  endure  hunger, 
unless  they  can  get  other  sources  of  income.  The 
mother  must  go  out  to  work  and  neglect  her  baby  to 
help  out ;  the  little  boys  and  girls  must  go  to  work  in  the 
days  when  they  ought  to  be  in  school  or  in  the  fields  at 
play,  to  help  out  the  beggars'  pittance  which  is  their  por- 
tion.    The  greatest  cause  of  poverty  is  low  wages. 

Then  think  of  the  accidents  which  occur  to  the  wage- 
earners,  making  them  incapable  of  earning  anything  for 
long  periods,  or  even  permanently.  At  the  same  meet- 
ing of  the  New  York  State  Conference  of  Charities  and 
Corrections  as  that  already  referred  to,  there  were  re- 
ports presented  by  many  of  the  charitable  organizations 
of  the  state  which  showed  that  this  cause  of  poverty  is 
a  very  serious  one,  and  one  that  is  constantly  increasing. 
In  only  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  accidents  of  a  seri- 
ous nature  investigated  was  there  any  settlement  made 
by  the  employers,  and  from  a  list  that  is  of  immense  in- 
terest I  take  just  a  few  cases  as  showing  how  little  the 
life  of  the  average  workingman  is  valued  at: 


THE  DRONES  AND  THE   BEES  57 

Nature  of  Injury.  Settlement 

Spine   injured $  20  and  doctor 

Legs   broken    300 

Death 100 

Death 65 

Two  ribs  broken 20 

Paralysis 12 

Brain  affected 60 

Fingers  amputated 50 

The  reports  showed  that  about  half  of  the  accidents 
occurred  to  men  under  forty  years  of  age,  in  the  very 
prime  of  life.  The  wages  were  determined  in  241  cases 
and  it  was  shown  that  about  25  per  cent,  were  earning 
less  than  $10  a  week  and  60  per  cent,  were  earning  less 
than  $15  a  week.  Even  without  the  accidents  occurring 
to  them  these  workers  and  their  families  must  be  miser- 
ably poor,  the  accidents  only  plunging  them  deeper  into 
the  frightful  abyss  of  despair,  of  \N'^sting  life  and  tortur- 
ous struggle. 

No,  my  friend,  it  is  not  true  that  the  poverty  of  the 
poor  is  due  to  their  sins,  thriftlessness  and  intemperance. 
I  want  you  to  remember  that  it  is  not  the  wicked  So- 
cialist agitators  only  who  say  this.  I  could  fill  a  book 
for  you  with  the  conclusions  of  very  conservative  men, 
all  of  them  opposed  to  Socialism,  whose  studies  have 
forced  them  to  this  conclusion. 

There  was  a  Royal  Commission  appointed  in  England 
some  years  ago  to  consider  the  problem  of  the  Aged 
Poor  and  how  to  deal  with  it.  Of  that  Royal  Commis- 
sion Lord  Aberdare  was  chairman  —  and  he  was  a  most 
implacable  enemy  of  Socialism.  The  Commission  re- 
ported in  1895 :  *'  We  are  confirmed  in  our  view  by  the 
evidence  we  have  received  that    ...    as  regards  the 


58  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

great  bulk  of  the  working  classes,  during  their  lives,  they 
are  fairly  provident,  fairly  thrifty,  fairly  industrious  and 
fairly  temperate."  But  they  could  not  add  that,  as  a  re- 
sult of  these  virtues,  they  were  also  fairly  well-to- 
do!  The  Right  Honorable  Joseph  Chamberlain,  an- 
other enemy  of  Socialism,  signed  with  several  others  a 
Minority  Report,  but  they  agreed  "  that  the  imputation 
that  old  age  pauperism  is  mainly  due  to  drink,  idleness, 
improvidence,  and  the  like  abuses  applies  to  but  a  very 
small  proportion  of  the  working  population." 

Very  similar  was  the  report  of  a  Select  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  appointed  to  consider  the  best 
means  of  improving  the  condition  of  the  "  aged  and 
deserving  poor."  The  report  read :  "  Cases  are  too 
often  found  in  which  poor  and  aged  people,  whose  con- 
duct and  whose  whole  career  has  been  blameless,  in- 
dustrious and  deserving,  find  themselves  from  no  fault 
of  their  own,  at  the  end  of  a  long  and  meritorious  life, 
with  nothing  but  the  workhouse  or  inadequate  outdoor 
relief  as  the  refuge  for  their  declining  years." 

And  what  is  true  of  England  in  this  respect  is  equally 
true  of  America. 

Let  me  repeat  here  that  I  am  not  defending  intemper- 
ance. I  believe  with  all  my  heart  that  we  must  fight 
intemperance  as  a  deadly  enemy  of  the  working  class. 
I  want  to  see  the  workers  sober;  sober  enough  to  think 
clearly,  sober  enough  to  act  wisely.  Before  we  can  get 
rid  of  the  evils  from  which  we  suffer  we  must  get  sober 
minds,  friend  Jonathan.  That  is  why  the  Socialists  of 
Europe  are  fighting  the  drink  evil;  that  is  why,  too,  the 
Prussian  Government  put  a  stop  to  the  "  Anti-Alcohol  " 
campaign  of  the  workers,  led  by  Dr.  Frolich,  of  Vienna. 
Dr.  Frolich  was  not  advocating  Socialism.  He  was 
simply  appealing  to  the  workers  to  stop  making  beasts 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE   BEES  59 

of  themselves,  to  become  sober  so  that  they  could  think 
clearly  with  brains  unmuddled  by  alcohol.  And  the 
Prussian  Government  did  not  want  that :  they  knew  very 
well  that  clear  thinking  and  sober  judgment  would  lead 
the  workers  to  the  ballot  boxes  under  Socialist  banners, 

I  care  most  of  all  for  the  suffering  of  the  innocent 
little  ones.  When  I  see  that  under  our  present  system 
it  is  necessary  for  the  mother  to  leave  her  baby's  cradle 
to  go  into  a  factory,  regardless  of  whether  the  baby  lives 
or  dies  when  it  is  fed  on  nasty  and  dangerous  artificial 
foods  or  poor,  polluted  milk,  I  am  stirred  to  my  soul's 
depths.  When  I  think  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  little 
babies  that  die  every  year  as  a  result  of  these  conditions 
I  have  described;  of  the  millions  of  children  who  go  to 
school  every  day  underfed  and  neglected,  and  of  the  little 
child  toilers  in  shops,  factories  and  mines,  as  well  as 
upon  the  farms,  though  their  lot  is  less  tragic  than  that 
of  the  little  prisoners  of  the  factories  and  mines  —  I  can- 
not find  words  to  express  my  hatred  of  the  ghoulish  sys- 
tem, 

I  should  like  you  to  read,  Jonathan,  a  little  pamphlet 
on  Underfed  School  Children,  which  costs  ten  cents,  and 
a  bigger  book,  The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children,  which 
you  can  get  at  the  public  library.  I  wrote  these  to  lay 
before  thinking  men  and  women  some  of  the  terrible 
evils  from  which  our  children  suffer.  /  knozv  that  the 
things  written  are  true.  Every  line  of  them  was  writ- 
ten with  the  single  purpose  of  telling  the  truth  as  I  had 
seen  it. 

I  made  the  terrible  assertions  that  more  than  eighty 
thousand  babies  are  slain  by  poverty  in  America  each 
year ;  that  some  "  2,000,000  children  of  school  age  in  the 
United  States  are  the  victims  of  poverty  which  denies 
^em  common  necessities,  particularly  adequate  nourish- 


60  COMMON    SENSE   OV   SOCIALISM 

ment";  that  there  were  at  least  1,750,000  children  at 
work  in  this  country.  These  statements,  and  the  evi- 
dence given  in  support  of  them,  attracted  widespread  at- 
tention, both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe.  They  were 
cited  in  the  U.  S.  Senate  and  in  Europe  parliaments. 
They  were  preached  about  from  thousands  of  pulpits 
and  discussed  from  a  thousand  platforms  by  politicians, 
social  reformers  and  others. 

A  committee  was  formed  in  New  York  City  to  pro- 
mote the  physical  welfare  of  school  children.  Al- 
though one  of  the  first  to  take  the  matter  up,  I  was  not 
asked  to  serve  on  that  committee,  on  account  of  the  fact, 
as  I  was  afterwards  told,  of  my  being  a  Socialist.  Well, 
that  Committee,  composed  entirely  of  non-Socialists,  and 
including  some  very  bitter  opponents  of  Socialism,  made 
an  investigation  of  the  health  of  school  children  in  New 
York  City.  They  examined,  medically,  some  1,400  chil- 
dren of  various  ages,  living  in  different  parts  of  the  city 
and  belonging  to  various  social  classes.  If  the  results 
they  discovered  are  common  to  the  whole  of  the  United 
States,  the  conditions  are  in  every  way  worse  than  I 
had  declared  them  to  be. 

//  the  conditions  found  by  the  medical  investigators 
for  this  committee  are  representative  of  the  whole  of  the 
United  States,  then  ive  have  not  less  than  twelve  million 
school  children  in  the  United  States  suffering  from  phy- 
sical defects  more  or  less  serious,  and  not  less  than 
1,248,000  suffering  from,  malnutrition  —  from  insufficient 
nourishment,  generally  due  to  poverty,  though  not  always 
—  to  such  an  extent  that  they  need  medical  attention* 

Do  you  think  a  nation  with  such  conditions  existing 
at  its  very  heart  ought  to  be  called  a  civilized  nation? 
I  don't.     I  say  that  it  is  a  brutalized  nation,  Jonathan! 

^Quar.  Pub.  American  Statistical  Association,  June  1907. 


THE  DRONES  AND  THE   BEES  6l 

And  now  I  want  you  to  look  over  a  list  of  another  kind 
of  shameful  social  conditions  —  a  list  of  some  of  the  vast 
fortunes  possessed  by  men  who  are  not  victims  of  pov- 
erty, but  of  shameful  wealth.  I  take  the  list  from  the 
dryasdust  pages  of  The  Congressional  Record,  Decem- 
ber 12,  1907,  from  a  speech  by  the  Hon.  Jeff  Davis,  Uni- 
ted States  Senator  from  Arkansas.  I  cannot  find  in  the 
pages  of  The  Congressional  Record  that  it  made  any 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  the  honorable  senators, 
but  I  hope  it  will  make  some  impression  upon  your  mind, 
my  friend.  It  is  a  good  deal  easier  to  get  a  human  idea 
into  the  head  of  an  honest  workingman  than  into  the 
head  of  an  honorable  senator! 

Don't  be  frightened  by  a  few  figures.  Read  them. 
They  are  full  of  human  interest.  I  have  put  before  you 
some  facts  relating  to  the  shameful  poverty  of  the  work- 
ers and  their  pitiable  condition,  and  now  I  want  to  put 
before  you  some  facts  relating  to  the  pitiable  condition 
of  the  non-workers.  I  want  you  to  feel  some  pity  for 
the  millionaires ! 

THE    RICHEST    FIFTY-ONE    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

"  When  the  average  present-day  millionaire  is  bluntly 
asked  to  name  the  value  of  his  earthly  possessions,  he 
finds  it  difficult  to  answer  the  question  correctly.  It 
may  be  that  he  is  not  willing  to  take  the  questioner  into 
his  confidence.     It  is  doubtful  whether  he  really  knows. 

"  If  this  is  true  of  the  millionaire  himself,  it  follows 
that  when  others  attempt  the  task  of  estimating  the 
amount  of  his  wealth  the  results  must  be  conflicting. 
Still,  excellent  authorities  are  not  lacking  on  this  subject, 
and  the  list  of  the  richest  fifty-one  persons  in  the  United 
States  has  been  satisfactorily  compiled. 

"  The   following  list  is  taken   from   Munsey's   Scrap 


&2 


COMMONSENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 


Book  of  June,  1906,  and  is  a  fair  presentation  of  the 
property  owned  by  fifty-one  of  the  very  richest  men  of 
the  United  States 


Name. 


How  Made. 


Total  Fortune. 


John  D.  Rockefeller. . 
Andrew  Carnegie  . . . . 

W.  W.  Astor 

J.  Pierpont  Morgan  . . 
William  Rockefeller  . 

H.  H.Rogers 

W.  K.  Vanderbilt.... 

Senator  Clark 

John  Jacob  Astor 

Russell  Sage 

H.  C.  Frick, 

D.  O.Mills 

Marshall  Field,  Jr 

Henry  M.  Flagler 

J.J.Hill 

John  D.  Archbold 

Oliver  Payne 

J.  B.  Haggin 

Harry  Field 

James  Henry  Smith. . 

Henry  Phipps 

Alfred  G.  Vanderbilt. 

H.  O.  Havemeyer 

Mrs.  Hetty  Green 

Thomas  r  .  Ryan 

Mrs.  W,  Walker 

George  Gould 

J.  Ogden  Armour 

E,  T;  Gerry 

Robert  W.  Goelet.... 

J.  H.  Flager 

Claus  Spreckels 

W.  F.  Havemeyer . . . 

Jacob  H.  SchiEE 

P.  A.  B.  Widener  . . . . 

George  F.  Baker 

August  Belmont 

James  Stillman 

John  W.  Gates 
Gorman  B.  Ream 

Joseph  Pulitzer 


Oil 

Steel 

Real  Estate... 

Finance 

Oil 

....do 

Railroads 

Copper 

Real  Estate . . . 

Finance 

Steel  and  Coke. 

Banker 

Inherited 

Oil 

Railroads. 

Oil 

...do 

Gold 

Inherited 

...do 

Steel 

Railroads 

Sugar 

Finance 

...do 

Inherited 

Railroads 

Meat 

Inherited 

Real  Estate  — 

Finance 

Sugar 

—  do 

Banker 

Street  Cars 

Banker , 

Finance 

Banker 

Finance 

...do 

Journalist 


$600,000,000 
300,000  000 
300,000,000 
150,000,000 
100,000,000 
100,000,000 
100,000,000 
100,000,000 
100,000,000 
80,000,000 
80,000,000 
75,000,000 
75,000,000 
60,000,000 
60,000,000 
50,000,000 
50,000,000 
50,000,000 
50,000,000 
40,000,000 
40,000,000 
40,000,000 
40,000,000 
40,000,000 
40,000,000 
35,000000 
35,000,000 
30,000,000 
30,000,000 
30,000,000 
30,000,000 
30,000,000 
30,000,000 
25,000,000 
25,000,000 
25,000,000 
20,000,000 
20,000,000 
20,000,000 
20,000,000 
30,000,000 


THE  DRONES   AND   THE   BEES 


63 


a 

Pi 

Name. 

How  Made. 

Total  Fortune. 

42 
43 
44 

46 
47 
48 
49 
50 
51 

James  G.  Bennett 

Journalist 

Finance 

Steel 

$20,000,000 

John  G.  Moore 

20,000,000 

D.  G.  Reid 

20,000,000 

Frederick  Pabst 

Brewer 

20,000,000 

William  D.  Sloane 

Inherited 

Railroads 

Tobacco 

Finance 

Railroads 

....do 

20,000,000 

William  B.  Leeds 

20,000,000 
20,000,000 

James  P.  Duke 

Anthony  N.  Brady 

20,000,000 

George  W.  Vanderbilt 

Fred  W.  Vanderbilt 

20,000,000 
20,000,000 

Total 

$3,295,000,000 

"  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  fifty-one  persons  in  the  United 
States,  with  a  population  of  nearly  90,000,000  people,  own 
approximately  one  thirty-fifth  of  the  entire  wealth  of 
the  United  States.  The  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  29th  number,  1906,  prepared  under  the  di- 
rection of  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor  of  the 
United  States,  gives  the  estimated  true  value  of  all  prop- 
erty in  the  United  States  for  that  year  at  $107,104,211,- 
917. 

"  Each  of  the  favored  fifty-one  owns  a  wealth  of  some- 
what more  than  $64,600,000,  while  each  of  the  remain- 
ing 89,999,950  people  get  $1,100.  No  one  of  these  fifty- 
one  owns  less  than  $20,000,000,  and  no  one  on  the  aver- 
age owns  less  than  $64,600,000.  Men  owning  from 
$1,000,000  to  $20,000,000  are  no  longer  called  rich  men. 
There  are  approximately  4,000  millionaires  in  the  United 
States,  but  the  aggregate  of  their  holdings  is  difficult  to 
obtain.  If  all  their  holdings  be  deducted  from  the  total 
true  value  of  all  the  property  in  the  United  States,  the 
average  share  of  each  of  the  other  89,995,000  people 
would  be  less  than  $500. 


64  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

"  John  Jacob  Astor  is  reputed  to  have  been  the  first 
American  miUionaire,  although  this  is  a  matter  impos- 
sible to  decide.  It  is  also  claimed  that  Nicholas  Long- 
worth,  of  Cincinnati,  the  great  grandfather  of  Congress- 
man Longworth,  was  the  first  man  west  of  the  Allegheny 
Mountains  to  amass  a  million.  It  is  difficult  to  prove 
either  one  of  these  propositions,  but  they  prove  that  the 
age  of  the  millionaire  in  the  United  States  is  a  compara- 
tively recent  thing.  In  1870  to  own  a  single  million  was 
to  be  a  very  rich  man;  in  1890  it  required  at  least  $10,- 
000,000,  while  to-day  a  man  with  a  single  million  or  even 
ten  millions  is  not  in  the  swim.  To  be  enumerated  as 
one  of  the  world's  richest  men  you  must  own  not  less 
than  $20,000,000." 

I  am  perfectly  serious  when  I  suggest  that  the  slaves 
of  riches  are  just  as  much  to  be  pitied  as  the  slaves  of 
poverty.  No  man  need  envy  Mr.  Rockefeller,  for  ex- 
ample, because  he  has  something  like  six  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  an  annual  income  of  about  seventy-two 
millions.  He  does  not  own  those  millions,  Jonathan, 
but  they  own  him.  He  is  a  slave  to  his  possessions.  If 
he  owns  a  score  of  automobiles  he  can  only  use  one  at 
a  time;  if  he  spends  millions  in  building  palatial  resi- 
dences for  himself  he  cannot  get  greater  comfort  than 
the  man  of  modest  fortune.  He  cannot  buy  health  nor 
a  single  touch  of  love  for  money. 

Many  of  our  great  modern  princes  of  industry  and 
commerce  are  good  men.  It  is  a  wild  mistake  to  im- 
agine that  they  are  all  terrible  ogres  and  monsters  of 
iniquity.  But  they  are  victims  of  an  unjust  system. 
Millions  roll  into  their  coffers  while  they  sleep,  and  they 
are  oppressed  by  the  burden  of  responsibilities.  If  they 
give  money  away  at  a  rate  calculated  to  ease  them  of  the 
burdens  beneath  which  they  stagger  they  can  only  do 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE   BEES  6$ 

more  harm  than  good.  Mr.  Carnegie  gives  public  libra- 
ries with  the  lavishness  with  which  travellers  in  Italy 
sometimes  throw  small  copper  coins  to  the  beggars  on 
the  streets,  but  he  is  only  pauperising  cities  wholesale 
and  hindering  the  progress  of  real  culture  by  taking 
away  from  civic  Hfe  the  spirit  of  self-reliance.  If  the 
people  of  a  small  town  came  together  and  said :  "  We 
ought  to  have  a  library  in  our  town  for  our  common  ad- 
vantage :  let  us  unite  and  subscribe  funds  for  a  hundred 
books  to  begin  with,"  that  would  be  an  expression  of 
true  culture. 

But  when  a  city  accepts  a  library  at  Mr.  Carnegie'vS 
hands,  there  is  an  inevitable  loss  of  self-respect  and  in- 
dependence. Mr.  Carnegie's  motives  may  be  good  and 
pure,  but  the  harm  done  to  the  community  is  none  the 
less  great. 

Mr.  Rockefeller  may  give  money  to  endow  colleges 
and  universities  from  the  very  highest  motives,  but  he 
cannot  prevent  the  endowments  from  influencing  the 
teaching  given  in  them,  even  if  he  should  try  to  do  so. 
Thus  the  gifts  of  our  millionaires  are  an  insidious 
poison  flowing  into  the  fountains  of  learning. 

Mind  you,  this  is  not  the  claim  of  a  prejudiced  Social- 
ist agitator.  President  Hadley,  of  Yale  University,  is  not 
a  Socialist  agitator,  but  he  admits  the  truth  of  this  claim. 
He  says  :  "Modern  University  teaching  costs  more  money 
per  capita  than  it  ever  did  before,  because  the  public 
wishes  a  university  to  maintain  places  of  scientific  re- 
search, and  scientific  research  is  extremely  expensive. 
A  university  is  more  likely  to  obtain  this  money  if  it 
gives  the  property  oivners  reason  to  believe  that  vested 
rights  will  not  be  interfered  zvith.  If  we  recognize 
vested  rights  in  order  to  secure  the  means  of  progress  in 
physical  science,  is  there  not  danger  that  we  shall  stifle 


66  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

the  spirit  of  independence  which  is  equally  important  as 
a  means  of  progress  in  moral  science  ?  " 

Professor  Bascom  is  not  a  Socialist  agitator,  either, 
but  he  also  recognizes  the  danger  of  corrupting  our  uni- 
versity teaching  in  this  manner.  After  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  "  wrongful  and  unflinching  way  "  in  which 
the  wealth  of  the  Standard  Oil  magnate  has  been 
amassed,  he  asks :  "  Is  a  college  at  liberty  to  accept  money 
gained  in  a  manner  so  hostile  to  the  public  welfare?  Is 
it  at  liberty,  when  the  Government  is  being  put  to  its 
wits'  end  to  check  this  aggression,  to  rank  itself  with 
those  who  fight  it  ?  " 

And  the  effect  of  riches  upon  the  rich  themselves  is 
as  bad  as  anything  in  modern  life.  While  it  is  true  that 
there  are  among  the  rich  many  very  good  citizens,  it  is 
also  perfectly  plain  to  any  honest  observer  of  conditions 
that  great  riches  are  producing  moral  havoc  and  dis- 
aster among  the  princes  of  wealth  in  this  country.  Mr. 
Carnegie  has  said  that  a  man  who  dies  rich  dies  dis- 
graced, but  there  is  even  greater  reason  to  believe  that 
to  be  born  rich  is  to  be  born  damned.  The  inheritance 
of  vast  fortunes  is  always  demoralizing. 

What  must  the  mind  and  soul  of  a  woman  be  like  who 
takes  her  toy  spaniel  in  state  to  the  opera  to  hear  Caruso 
sing,  while,  in  the  same  city,  there  are  babies  dying  for 
lack  of  food?  What  are  we  to  think  of  the  dog-din- 
ners, the  monkey-dinners  and  the  other  unspeakably 
foolish  and  unspeakably  vile  orgies  constantly  reported 
from  Newport  and  other  places  where  the  drones  of 
our  social  system  disport  themselves?  What  shall  we 
say  of  the  shocking  state  of  affairs  disclosed  by  the  dis- 
gusting reports  of  our  "  Society  Scandals,"  except  that 
unearned  riches  corrode  and  destroy  all  human  virtues? 

The  wise  King,  Solomon,  knew  what  he  was  talking 


THE   DRONES   AND   THE    BEES  67 

about  when  he  cried  out:  "  Give  me  neither  poverty  nor 
riches."  Unnatural  poverty  is  bad,  blighting  the  soul  of 
man;  and  unnatural  riches  are  likewise  bad,  equally 
blighting  the  soul  of  man.  Our  social  system  is  bail 
for  both  classes,  Jonathan,  and  a  change  to  better  and 
juster  conditions,  while  it  will  be  resisted  by  the  rich,  th-^ 
drones,  with  all  their  might,  will  be  for  the  common  good 
of  all.  For  it  is  well  to  remember  that  in  trying  to  get 
rid  of  the  rule  of  the  drones,  the  working  class  is  not 
trying  to  become  the  ruling  class,  to  rule  others  as  they 
have  been  ruled.  We  are  aiming  to  do  away  with  classes 
altogether ;  to  make  a  united  and  free  social  state. 


VI 

THE   ROOT   OF   THE   EVIL 


All  for  ourselves  and  nothing  for  other  people  seems  tn  all 
ages  to  have  been  the  vile  maxim  of  the  masters  of  mankind. 
—  Adam  Smith. 

Hither,  ye   blind,   from   your   futile   banding! 

Know  the  rights  and  the  rights  are  won. 
Wrong  shall  die  with  the  understanding, 

One  truth  clear,  and  the  work  is  done. —  John  Boyle 
O'Reilly. 

The  great  ones  of  the  world  have  taken  this  earth  of  ours 
to  themselves;  they  hve  in  the  midst  of  splendour  and  super- 
fluity. The  smallest  nook  of  the  land  is  already  a  possession; 
none  may  touch  it  or  meddle  with  it. —  Goethe. 

I  have  by  no  means  exhausted  the  evils  of  the  system 
under  which  we  live  in  the  brief  catalogue  I  have  made 
for  you,  my  friend.  If  it  were  necessary,  I  could  com- 
pile an  immense  volume  of  authentic  evidence  to  over- 
whelm you  with  a  sense  of  the  awful  failure  of  our  civil- 
ization to  produce  a  free,  united,  healthy,  happy  and  vir- 
tuous people,  which  I  conceive  to  be  the  goal  toward 
which  all  good  and  wise  men  should  aspire.  But  it  is 
dreary  and  unpleasant  work  recounting  evil  conditions; 
constantly  looking  at  the  sores  of  society  is  a  morbid  and 
soul-destroying  task. 

I  want  you  now  to  consider  the  cause  of  industrial 
misery  and  social  inequality,  to  ask  yourself  why  these 

68 


THE   ROOT   OF   THE   EVIL  69 

conditions  exist.  For  we  can  never  hope  to  remove  the 
evils,  Jonathan,  until  we  have  discovered  the  underlying 
causes.  How  does  it  happen  that  some  people  are  thrifty 
and  virtuous  and  yet  miserably  poor  and  that  others  are 
thriftless  and  sinful  and  yet  so  rich  that  their  riches 
weigh  them  down  and  make  them  as  miserable  as  the 
very  poorest?  Why,  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  fair  and 
good,  have  we  got  such  a  stupid,  wasteful,  unjust  and 
unlovely  social  system  after  all  the  long  centuries  of  hu- 
man experience  and  toil?  When  you  can  answer  these 
questions,  my  friend,  you  will  know  whither  to  look  for 
deliverance. 

You  said  in  your  letter  to  me  the  other  day,  Jonathan, 
that  you  thought  things  were  bad  because  of  the  wicked- 
ness of  man's  nature.  Lots  of  people  believe  that.  The 
churches  have  taught  that  doctrine  for  ages,  but  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  is  true.  It  is  a  doctrine  which  earnest 
men  who  have  been  baffled  in  trying  to  find  a  satisfac- 
tory explanation  for  the  evils  have  accepted  in  despera- 
tion. It  is  the  doctrine  of  pessimism,  despair  and  wild 
unfaith  in  man.  If  it  were  true  that  things  were  so  bad 
as  they  are  just  because  men  were  wicked  and  because 
there  never  were  good  men  enough  to  make  them  better, 
we  should  not  have  any  ground  for  hope  for  the  future. 

I  propose  to  try  and  show  you  that  the  wickedness  of 
our  poor  human  nature  is  not  responsible  for  the  terrible 
social  conditions,  so  that  you  will  not  have  to  depend 
for  your  hope  of  a  better  society  upon  the  very  slender 
thread  of  the  chance  of  getting  enough  good  men  to 
make  conditions  better.  Bad  conditions  make  bad  lives, 
Jonathan,  and  will  continue  to  do  so.  Instead  of  de- 
pending upon  getting  good  men  first  to  make  conditions 
good,  we  must  make  conditions  good  so  that  good  lives 
may  flourish  and  grow  in  them  naturally. 


yO  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

You  have  read  a  little  history,  I  daresay,  and  you  know 
that  there  is  no  truth  in  the  old  cry  that  "  As  things  are 
now  things  always  have  been  and  always  will  be."  You 
know  that  things  are  always  changing.  If  George 
Washington  could  come  back  to  earth  again  he  would  be 
amazed  at  the  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  the 
United  States.  Going  further  back,  Christopher  Co- 
lumbus would  not  recognize  the  country  he  discovered. 
And  if  we  could  go  back  millions  of  years  and  bring  to 
Hfe  one  of  our  earliest  ancestors,  one  of  the  primitive 
cave-dwellers,  and  set  him  down  in  one  of  our  great 
cities,  the  mighty  houses,  streets  railways,  telephones, 
telegraphs,  wireless  telegraphy,  electric  vehicles  on  the 
streets  and  the  ships  out  on  the  river  would  terrify  him 
far  more  than  an  angry  tiger  would.  Can  you  think 
how  astonished  and  alarmed  such  a  primitive  cave-man 
would  be  to  be  taken  into  one  of  your  great  Pittsburg 
mills  or  down  into  a  coal  mine? 

No.  The  world  has  grown,  Jonathan.  Man  has  en- 
larged his  kingdom,  his  power  in  the  universe.  Step  by 
step  in  the  evolution  of  the  race,  man  has  wrested  from 
Nature  her  secrets.  He  has  gone  down  into  the  deep 
caverns  and  found  mineral  treasuries  there ;  he  has  made 
the  angry  waves  of  the  ocean  bear  great,  heavy  burdens 
from  shore  to  shore  for  his  benefit;  he  has  harnessed 
the  tides  and  the  winds  that  blow  and  caught  the  light- 
ning currents,  making  them  all  his  servants.  Between 
the  lowest  man  in  the  modem  tenement  and  the  cave- 
man there  is  a  greater  gulf  than  ever  existed  between  the 
beast  in  the  forest  and  the  highest  man  dwelling  in  a 
cave  in  that  far-off  period. 

Things  are  not  as  they  are  to-day  because  a  group  of 
clever  but  desperately  wicked  men  came  together  and 
invented  a  scheme  of  society  in  which  the  many  must 


THE   ROOT  OF   THE   EVIL  7I 

work  for  the  few;  in  which  some  must  have  more  than 
they  can  use,  so  that  they  rot  of  excess  while  others  have 
too  Httle  and  rot  of  hunger ;  in  which  little  children  must 
toil  in  factories  so  that  big  strong  men  may  loaf  in  clubs 
and  dens  of  vice;  in  which  some  women  sell  themselves 
body  and  soul  for  bread  while  other  women  spend  the 
sustenance  of  thousands  upon  jewels  for  pet  dogs.  No. 
It  was  no  such  fiendish  ingenuity  which  devised  the 
capitalistic  system  and  imposed  it  upon  mankind.  It  has 
grozvn  up  through  the  ages,  Jonathan,  and  is  still  grow- 
ing. We  have  grown  from  savagery  and  barbarism 
through  various  stages  to  our  present  commercial  sys- 
tem, and  the  process  of  growth  is  still  going  on.  I  be- 
lieve we  are  growing  into  Socialism. 

There  have  been  many  forces  urging  mankind  onward 
in  this  long  evolution.  Religion  has  played  a  part. 
Love  of  country  has  played  a  part.  Climate  and  the  na- 
ture of  the  soil  have  been  factors.  Man's  ever  growing 
curiosity,  his  desire  to  know  more  of  the  life  around  him, 
has  had  much  to  do  with  it.  I  have  put  the  ideals  of  re- 
ligion and  patriotism  first,  Jonathan,  because  I  wanted 
you  to  see  that  they  were  by  no  means  overlooked  or  for- 
gotten, but  in  truth  they  ought  not  to  be  placed  first.  It 
is  the  verdict  of  all  who  have  made  a  study  of  social  evo- 
lution that,  while  these  factors  have  exerted  an  important 
influence,  back  of  them  have  been  the  material  economic 
conditions. 

In  philosophy  this  is  the  basis  of  a  very  profound 
theory  upon  which  many  learned  volumes  have  been 
written.  It  is  generally  called  "  The  Materialistic  Con- 
ception of  History,"  but  sometimes  it  is  called  "  Eco- 
nomic Determinism  "  or  "  The  Economic  Interpretation 
of  History."  The  first  man  to  set  forth  the  theory  in  a 
very  clear  and  connected  manner  was  Karl  Marx,  upon 


7^  COMMON   SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

whose  teachings  the  Socialists  of  the  world  have  placed 
a  great  deal  of  reliance.  I  don't  expect  you  to  read  all 
the  heavy  and  learned  books  written  upon  this  subject, 
for  many  of  them  require  that  a  man  must  be  specially 
trained  in  philosophy  in  order  to  understand  them.  For 
the  present  I  shall  be  quite  satisfied  if  you  will  read 
a  ten-cent  pamphlet  called  The  Communist  Manifesto, 
by  Karl  Marx  and  Frederick  Engels  and,  along  with 
that,  the  fourth,  fifth  and  sixth  chapters  of  my  book. 
Socialism,  about  a  hundred  pages  altogether.  These 
will  give  you  a  fairly  clear  notion  of  the  matter.  I  shall 
not  mention  the  hard,  scientific  name  of  this  philosophy 
again.     I  don't  like  big  words  if  little  ones  will  serve. 

If  you  enjoy  reading  a  good  story,  a  novel  that  is  full 
of  romance  and  adventure,  I  would  advise  you  to  read 
Before  Adam,  by  Jack  London,  a  Socialist  writer.  It 
is  a  novel,  but  it  is  also  a  work  of  science.  He  gives  an 
account  of  the  life  of  the  first  men  and  shows  how  their 
whole  existence  depended  upon  the  crude  weapons  and 
tools,  sticks  picked  up  in  the  forests,  which  they  used. 
They  couldn't  live  differently  than  they  did,  because  they 
had  no  other  means  of  getting  a  living.  How  a  people 
make  their  living  determines  how  they  live. 

For  many  thousands  of  years,  the  scientists  tell  us, 
men  lived  in  the  world  without  owning  any  private  prop- 
erty. That  came  into  existence  when  men  saw  that  one 
man  could  produce  more  out  of  the  soil  than  he  needed  to 
eat  himself.  Then,  when  they  went  out  to  war  with 
other  tribes,  the  members  of  a  tribe  instead  of  trying  to 
kill  their  enemies,  made  them  captives  and  used  them  as 
slaves.  They  did  not  cease  killing  their  foes  from  hu- 
mane motives,  because  they  had  grown  better  men,  but 
because  it  was  more  profitable. 

From  our  point  of  view,  slavery  is  a  bad  thing,  but 


THE   ROOT  OF  THE   EVIL  73 

when  it  first  came  into  existence  it  was  a  step  upward 
and  onward.  If  we  take  the  history  of  slave  societies 
and  nations  we  shall  soon  find  that  their  laws,  their  cus- 
toms and  their  institutions  were  based  upon  the  mode 
of  producing  wealth  through  the  labor  of  slaves.  There 
were  two  classes  into  which  society  was  divided,  a  class 
of  masters  and  a  class  of  slaves. 

When  slavery  broke  down  and  gave  way  to  feudalism 
there  were  new  ways  of  producing  wealth.  The  laws 
of  feudal  societies,  their  customs  and  institutions, 
changed  to  meet  the  needs  brought  about  through  the 
new  methods  of  making  things.  Under  slavery,  the 
slaves  made  wealth  for  their  masters  and  were  doled  out 
food  enough  to  keep  them  alive.  The  slave  had  no 
rights.  Under  feudalism,  the  serfs  produced  wealth  for 
the  lords  parts  of  the  time,  working  for  themselves  the 
rest  of  the  time.  They  had  some  rights.  The  bounds 
of  freedom  were  widened.  Under  neither  of  these  sys- 
tems was  there  a  regular  system  of  paying  wages  in 
money,  such  as  we  have  to-day.  The  slave  gave  up  all 
his  product  and  took  what  the  master  was  pleased  to 
give  him  in  the  way  of  food,  clothing  and  shelter.  The 
serf  divided  his  time  between  producing  for  the  owner 
of  the  soil  and  producing  for  his  family.  The  slave 
produced  what  his  owner  wanted;  the  serf  produced 
what  either  he  himself  or  his  lord  wanted. 

There  came  a  time,  about  three  hundred  years  ago, 
when  the  feudal  system  broke  down  before  the  begin- 
nings of  capitalism,  the  system  which  we  are  living  un- 
der to-day,  and  which  we  Socialists  think  is  breaking 
down  as  all  other  social  systems  have  broken  down  be- 
fore it.  Under  this  system  men  have  worked  for  wages 
and  not  because  they  wanted  the  things  they  were  pro- 
ducing, nor  because  the  men  who  employed  them  wanted 


74  COMMON    SENSE    OF    SOCIALISM 

the  things,  but  simply  because  the  things  could  be  sold 
and  a  profit  made  in  the  sale. 

You  will  remember,  Jonathan,  that  in  a  former  letter 
I  dealt  with  the  nature  of  wealth.  We  saw  then  that 
wealth  in  our  modern  society  consists  of  an  abundance 
of  things  which  can  be  sold.  At  bottom,  we  do  not 
make  things  because  it  is  well  that  they  should  be  made, 
because  the  makers  need  them,  but  simply  because  the 
captalists  see  possibilities  of  selling  the  things  at  a  pro- 
fit. 

I  want  you  to  consider  just  a  moment  how  this  works 
out:  Here  is  a  workingman  in  Springfield,  Massachu- 
setts, making  deadly  weapons  wath  which  other  work- 
ingmen  in  other  lands  are  to  be  killed.  We  go  up  to  him 
as  he  works  and  inquire  where  the  rifles  are  to  be  sent, 
and  he  very  politely  tells  us  that  they  are  for  some  for- 
eign government,  say  the  Japanese,  to  be  used  in  all 
probability  against  Russian  soldiers.  Suppose  we  ask 
him  next  what  interest  he  has  in  helping  the  Japanese 
government  to  kill  the  Russian  troops,  how  he  comes  to 
have  an  active  hatred  of  the  Russian  soldiers.  He  will 
reply  at  once  that  he  has  no  such  feelings  against  the 
Russians ;  that  he  is  not  interested  in  having  the  Japanese 
slaughter  them.  Why,  then,  is  he  making  the  guns? 
He  answers  at  once  that  he  is  only  interested  in  getting 
his  wages ;  that  it  is  all  the  same  to  him  whether  he  makes 
guns  for  Christians  or  Infidels,  for  Russians  or  Japs  or 
Turks.  His  only  interest  is  to  get  his  wages.  He  would 
as  soon  be  making  coffins  as  guns,  or  shoes  as  coffins,  so 
long  as  he  got  his  wages. 

Perhaps,  then,  the  company  for  which  he  is  employed 
has  an  interest  in  helping  Japan  defeat  the  troops  of 
Russia.  Possibly  the  shareholders  in  the  company  are 
Japanese  or  sympathizers  with  Japan.    Otherwise,  why 


THE  ROOT  OF  THE  EVIL  75 

should  they  be  bothering  themselves  getting  workpeople 
to  make  guns  for  Japanese  soldiers  to  kill  Russian  sol- 
diers with  ?  So  we  go  to  the  manager  and  ask  him  to  ex- 
plain the  matter.  He  very  politely  tells  us  that,  like  the 
man  at  the  bench,  he  has  no  interest  in  the  matter  at  all, 
and  that  the  shareholders  are  in  the  same  position  of 
being  quite  indifferent  to  the  quarrel  of  the  two  nations. 
"  Why,  we  are  also  making  guns  for  Russia  in  our  fac- 
tory," he  says,  and  when  we  ask  him  to  explain  why  he 
tells  us  that  "  There  is  profit  to  be  made  and  the  firm 
cares  for  nothing  else." 

All  our  system  revolves  around  that  central  sun  of 
profit-making,  Jonathan.  Here  is  a  factory  in  which  a 
great  many  people  are  making  shoddy  clothing.  You 
can  tell  at  a  glance  that  it  is  shoddy  and  quite  unfit  for 
wearing.  But  why  are  the  people  making  shoddy  goods 
—  why  don't  they  make  decent  clothing,  since  they  can 
do  it  quite  as  well?  Why,  because  there  is  a  profit  for 
somebody  in  making  shoddy.  Here  a  group  of  men  are  ^/ 
building  a  house.  They  are  making  it  of  the  poorest 
materials,  making  dingy  little  rooms ;  the  building  is  badly 
constructed  and  it  can  never  be  other  than  a  barracks. 
Why  this  "jerry-building?"  There  is  no  reason  under 
the  sun  why  poor  houses  should  be  built  except  that 
somebody  hopes  to  make  profit  out  of  them. 

Goods  are  adulterated  and  debased,  even  the  food  of 
the  nation  is  poisoned,  for  profit.  Legislatures  are  cor- 
rupted and  courts  of  justice  are  polluted  by  the  presence 
of  the  bribe-giver  and  the  bribe-taker  for  profit.  Nations 
are  embroiled  in  quarrels  and  armies  slaughter  armies 
over  questions  which  are,  always,  ultimately  questions  of 
profit.  Here  are  children  toiling  in  sweatshops,  fac- 
tories and  mines  while  men  are  idle  and  seeking  work. 
Why  ?  Do  we  need  the  labor  of  the  little  ones  in  order  to 


76  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

produce  enough  to  maintain  the  Ufe  of  the  nation?  No. 
But  there  are  some  people  who  are  going  to  make  a  profit 
out  of  the  labors  which  sap  the  strength  of  those  little 
ones.  Here  are  thousands  of  people  hungry,  clamoring 
for  food  and  perishing  for  lack  of  it.  They  are  willing 
to  work,  there  are  resources  for  them  to  work  upon ;  they 
could  easily  maintain  themselves  in  comfort  and  glad- 
ness if  they  set  to  work.  Then  why  don't  they  set  to 
work?  Oh,  Jonathan,  the  torment  of  this  monotonous 
answer  is  unbearable  —  because  no  one  can  make  a  profit 
out  of  their  labor  they  must  be  idle  and  starve,  or  drag 
out  a  miserable  existence  aided  by  the  crumbs  of  cold 
charity ! 

If  our  social  economy  were  such  that  we  produced 
things  for  use,  because  they  were  useful  and  beautiful, 
we  should  go  on  producing  with  a  good  will  until  every- 
body had  a  plentiful  supply.  If  we  found  ourselves  pro- 
ducing too  rapidly,  faster  than  we  could  consume  the 
things,  we  could  easily  slacken  our  pace.  We  could 
spend  more  time  beautifying  our  cities  and  our  homes, 
more  time  cultivating  our  minds  and  hearts  by  social  in- 
tercourse and  in  the  companionship  of  the  great  spirits 
of  all  ages,  through  the  masterpieces  of  literature,  music, 
painting  and  sculpture.  But  instead,  we  produce  for 
sale  and  profit.  When  the  workers  have  produced  more 
than  the  master  class  can  use  and  they  themselves  buy 
back  out  of  their  meagre  wages,  there  is  a  glut  in  the 
markets  of  the  world,  unless  a  new  market  can  be  opened 
up  by  making  war  upon  some  defenseless,  undeveloped 
nation. 

When  there  is  a  glut  in  the  market,  Jonathan,  you 
know  what  happens.  Shops  and  factories  are  shut 
down,  the  number  of  workers  employed  is  reduced,  the 
army  of  the  unemployed  grows  and  there  is  a  rise  in 


THE  ROOT  OF  THE  EVIL  >jy 

the  tide  of  poverty  and  misery.  Yet  why  should  rt 
be  SO?  Why,  simply  because  there  is  a  superabundance 
of  wealth,  should  people  be  made  poorer?  Why  should 
little  children  go  without  shoes  just  because  there  are 
loads  of  shoes  stacked  away  in  stores  and  warehouses? 
Why  should  people  go  without  clothing  simply  because 
the  warehouses  are  bursting  with  clothes?  The  answer 
is  that  these  things  must  be  so  because  we  produce  for 
profit  instead  of  for  use.  All  these  stores  of  wealth 
belong  to  the  class  of  profit-takers,  the  capitalist  class, 
and  they  must  sell  and  make  profit. 

So  you  see,  friend  Jonathan,  so  long  as  this  system 
lasts,  people  must  have  too  little  because  they  have  pro- 
duced too  much.  So  long  as  this  system  lasts,  there 
must  be  periods  when  we  say  that  society  cannot  afford 
to  have  men  and  zvomen  work  to  maintain  themselves 
decently!  But  under  any  sane  system  it  will  surely  be 
considered  the  maddest  kind  of  folly  to  keep  men  in 
idleness  while  saying  that  it  does  not  pay  to  keep  them 
working.  Is  there  any  more  expensive  way  of  keeping 
either  an  ass  or  a  man  than  in  idleness? 

The  root  of  evil,  the  taproot  from  which  the  evils  of 
modern  society  develop,  is  the  profit  idea.  Life  is 
subordinated  to  the  making  of  profit.  If  it  were  only 
possible  to  embody  that  idea  in  human  shape,  what  a 
monster  ogre  it  would  be !  And  how  we  should  arraign 
it  at  the  bar  of  human  reason!  Should  we  not  call 
up  images  of  the  million  of  babes  who  have  been  need- 
lessly and  wantonly  slaughtered  by  the  Monster  Idea ; 
the  images  of  all  the  maimed  and  wounded  and  killed 
in  the  wars  for  markets ;  the  millions  of  others  who  have 
been  bruised  and  broken  in  the  industrial  arena  to  se- 
cure somebody's  profit,  because  it  was  too  expensive  to 
guard  life  and  limb;  the  numberless  victims  of  adul- 


yS  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

terated  food  and  drink,  of  cheap  tenements  and  shoddy 
clothes?  Should  we  not  call  up  the  wretched  women  of 
our  streets ;  the  bribers  and  the  vendors  of  privilege  ? 
We  should  surely  parade  in  pitiable  procession  the 
dwarfed  and  stunted  bodies  of  the  millions  born  to  hard- 
ship and  suffering,  but  we  could  not,  alas!  parade  the 
dwarfed  and  stunted  souls,  the  sordid  spirits  for  which 
the  Monster  Idea  is  responsible. 

I  ask  you,  Jonathan  Edwards,  what  you  really  think 
of  this  "  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear  "  idea,  which  is  the 
heart  and  soul  of  our  capitalistic  system.  Are  you  sat- 
isfied that  it  should  continue? 

Yet,  my  friend,  bad  as  it  is  in  its  full  development, 
and  terrible  as  are  its  fruits,  this  idea  once  stood  for 
progress.  The  system  was  a  step  in  the  liberation  of 
man.  It  was  an  advance  upon  feudalism  which  bound 
the  laborer  to  the  soil.  Capitalism  has  not  been  all  bad ; 
it  has  another,  brighter  side.  Capitalism  had  to  have 
laborers  who  were  free  to  move  from  one  place  to 
another,  even  to  other  lands,  and  that  need  broke  down 
the  last  vestiges  of  the  old  physical  slavery.  That  was 
a  step  gained.  Capitalism  had  to  have  intelligent  work- 
ers and  many  educated  ones.  That  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  common  people  the  key  to  the  sealed  treasuries 
of  knowledge.  It  had  to  have  a  legal  system  to  meet 
its  requirements  and  that  has  resulted  in  the  develop- 
ment of  representative  government,  of  something  ap- 
proaching political  democracy ;  even  where  kings  nom- 
inally rule  to-day,  their  power  is  but  a  shadow  of  what 
it  once  was.  Every  step  taken  by  the  capitalist  class  for 
the  advancement  of  its  ov/n  interests  has  become  in  its 
turn  a  stepping-stone  upon  which  the  working-class  has 
raised  itself. 

Karl  Marx  once  said  that  the  capitalist  sj^stcn:  pro- 


THE  ROOT  OF   THE   EVIL  79 

vides  its  own  gravediggers.  I  have  cited  two  or  three 
things  which  will  illustrate  his  meaning.  Later  on,  I 
must  try  and  explain  to  you  how  the  great  "  trusts  " 
about  which  you  complain  so  loudly,  and  which  seem  to 
be  the  very  perfection  of  the  capitalist  ideal,  lead  toward 
Socialism  at  a  pace  which  nothing  can  very  seriously 
hinder,  though  it  may  be  quickened  by  wise  action  on 
the  part  of  the  workers. 

For  the  present  I  shall  be  satisfied,  friend  Jonathan, 
if  you  get  it  thoroughly  into  your  mind  that  the  source  of 
terrible  social  evils,  of  the  poverty  and  squalor,  of  the 
helpless  misery  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  of  most  of 
the  crime  and  vice  and  much  of  the  disease,  is  the  "  buy 
cheap  and  sell  dear  "  idea.  The  fact  that  we  produce 
things  for  sale  for  the  profit  of  a  few,  instead  of  for 
use  and  the  enjoyment  of  all. 

Get  that  into  your  mind  above  everything  else,  my 
friend.  And  try  to  grasp  the  fact,  also,  that  the  system 
we  are  now  trying  to  change  was  a  natural  outgrowth 
of  other  conditions.  It  was  not  a  wicked  invention,  nor 
was  it  a  foolish  blunder.  It  was  a  necessary  and  a  right 
step  in  human  evolution.  But  now  it  has  in  turn  become 
unsuitable  to  the  needs  of  the  people  and  it  must  give 
place  to  something  else.  When  a  man  suffers  from  such 
a  disease  as  appendicitis,  he  does  not  talk  about  the 
"  wickedness"  of  the  vermiform  appeadix.  He  realizes, 
if  he  is  a  sensible  man,  that  long  ago,  that  was  an  organ 
which  served  a  useful  purpose  in  the  human  system. 
Gradually,  perhaps  in  the  course  of  many  centuries,  it 
has  ceased  to  be  of  any  use.  It  has  lost  its  original 
functions  and  become  a  menace  to  the  body. 

Capitalism,  Jonathan,  is  the  vermiform  appendix  of 
the  social  organism.  It  has  served  its  purpose.  The 
profit  idea  has  served  an  important  function  in  society, 


80  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

but  it  is  now  useless  and  a  menace  to  the  body  social. 
Our  troubles  are  due  to  a  kind  of  social  appendicitis. 
And  the  remedy  is  to  remove  the  useless  and  offending 
member. 


VII 

FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY 

It  may  be  fairly  said,  I  think,  that  not  merely  competition, 
but  competition  that  was  proving  ruinous  to  many  establish- 
ments, was  the  cause  of  the  combinations. —  Prof.  J.  W.  Jenks. 

The  day  of  the  capitalist  has  come,  and  he  has  made  full  use 
of  it.  To-morrow  will  be  the  day  of  the  laborer,  provided  he 
has  the  strength  and  the  wisdom  to  use  his  opportunities. — 
H.  De.  B.  Gibbins. 

Monopoly  expands,  ever  expands,  till  it  ends  by  bursting. — • 
P.  J.  Proudhon. 

For  this  is  the  close  of  an  era;  we  have  political  freedom; 
next  and  right  away  is  to  come  social  enfranchisement. — 
Benjamin  Kidd. 

I  think  you  realize,  friend  Jonathan,  that  the  bottom 
principle  of  the  present  capitalist  system  is  that  there 
must  be  one  class  owning  the  land,  mines,  factories,  rail- 
ways, and  other  agencies  of  production,  but  not  using 
them ;  and  another  class,  using  the  land  and  other  means 
of  production,  but  not  owning  them. 

Only  those  things  are  produced  which  there  is  a  rea- 
sonable hope  of  selling  at  a  profit.  Upon  no  other  con- 
ditions will  the  owners  of  the  means  of  production  con- 
sent to  their  being  used.  The  worker  who  does  not 
own  the  things  necessary  to  produce  wealth  must  work 
upon  the  terras  imposed  by  the  other  fellow  in  most 
cases.    The  coal  miner,  not  owning  the  coal  mine,  must 

8i 


82  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

agree  to  work  for  wages.  So  must  the  mechanic  in  the 
workshop  and  the  mill-worker. 

As  a  practical,  sensible  workingman,  Jonathan,  you 
know  very  well  that  if  anybody  says  the  interests  of 
these  two  classes  are  the  same  it  is  a  foolish  and  lying 
statement.  You  are  a  workingman,  a  wage-earner,  and 
you  know  that  it  is  to  your  interest  to  get  as  much 
wages  as  possible  for  the  smallest  amount  of  work.  If 
you  work  by  the  day  and  get,  let  us  say,  two  dollars  for 
ten  hours'  work,  it  would  be  a  great  advantage  to  you 
if  you  could  get  your  wages  increased  to  three  dollars 
and  your  hours  of  labor  to  eight  per  day,  wouldn't  it? 
And  if  you  thought  that  you  could  get  these  benefits 
for  the  asking  you  would  ask  for  them,  wouldn't  you? 
Of  course  you  would,  being  a  sensible,  hard-headed 
American  workingman. 

Now,  if  giving  these  things  would  be  quite  as  much 
to  the  advantage  of  the  company  as  to  you,  the  company 
would  be  just  as  glad  to  give  them  as  you  would  be  to 
receive  them,  wouldn't  it?  I  am  assuming,  of  course, 
that  the  company  knows  its  own  interests  just  as  well  as 
you  and  your  fellow  workmen  know  yours.  But  if  you 
went  to  the  officials  of  the  company  and  asked  them  to 
give  you  a  dollar  more  for  the  two  hours'  less  work, 
they  would  not  give  it  —  unless,  of  course,  you  were 
strong  enough  to  fight  and  compel  them  to  accept  your 
terms.  But  they  would  resist  and  you  would  have  to 
fight,  because  your  interests  clashed. 

That  is  why  trade  unions  are  formed  on  the  one  side 
and  employers'  associations  upon  the  other.  Society  is 
divided  by  antagonistic  interests ;  into  exploiters  and  ex- 
ploited. 

Politicians  and  preachers  may  cry  out  that  there  are 
no  classes  in  America,  and  they  may  even  be;  foolish 


FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY  83 

enough  to  believe  it  —  for  there  are  lots  of  very  foolish 
politicians  and  preachers  in  the  world !  You  may  even 
hear  a  short-sighted  labor  leader  say  the  same  thing,  but 
you  know  very  well,  my  friend,  that  they  are  wrong. 
You  may  not  be  able  to  confute  them  in  debate,  not  hav- 
ing their  skill  in  wordy  warfare;  but  your  experience, 
your  common  sense,  convince  you  that  they  are  wrong. 
And  all  the  greatest  political  economists  are  on  your 
side.  I  could  fill  a  volume  with  quotations  from  the 
writings  of  the  most  learned  political  economists  of  all 
times  in  support  of  your  position,  but  I  shall  only  give 
one  quotation.  It  is  from  Adam  Smith's  great  work, 
The  Wealth  of  Nations,  and  I  quote  it  partly  because  no 
better  statement  of  the  principle  has  ever  been  made  by 
any  writer,  and  partly  also  because  no  one  can  accuse 
Adam  Smith  of  being  a  "  wicked  Socialist  trying  to  set 
class  against  class."    He  says : 

"  The  workmen  desire  to  get  as  much,  the  masters  to  give  as 
little  as  possible.  The  former  are  disposed  to  combine  in  order 
to  raise,  the  latter  in  order  to  lower  the  wages  of  labor. 
.  .  .  Masters  are  always  and  everywhere  in  a  sort  of  tacit, 
but  constant  and  uniform,  combination,  not  to  raise  the  wages 
of  labor  above  their  actual  rate.  To  violate  this  combination  is 
everywhere  a  most  unpopular  action,  and  a  sort  of  a  reproach 
to  a  master  among  his  neighbors  and  equals,  .  .  .  Masters 
too  sometimes  enter  into  particular  combinations  to  sink  the 
wages  of  labor.  .  .  .  These  are  always  conducted  with  the 
utmost  silence  and  secrecy,  till  the  moment  of  execution." 

That  is  very  plainly  put,  Jonathan.  Adam  Smith  was 
a  great  thinker  and  an  honest  one.  He  was  not  afraid 
to  tell  the  truth.  I  am  going  to  quote  a  little  further 
what  he  says  about  the  combinations  of  workingmen  to 
increase  their  wages: 


84  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

"  Such  combinations,  [i.  e.,  to  lower  wages]  however,  are 
frequently  resisted  by  a  contrary  defensive  combination  of  the 
workmen;  who  sometimes  too,  without  any  provocation  of  this 
kind,  combine  of  their  own  accord  to  raise  the  price  of  labor. 
Their  usual  pretenses  are,  sometimes  the  high  price  of  pro- 
visions; sometimes  the  great  profit  which  their  masters  make 
by  their  work.  But  whether  these  combinations  be  offensive  or 
defensive,  they  are  always  abundantly  heard  of.  In  order  to 
bring  the  point  to  a  speedy  decision,  they  have  always  recourse 
to  the  loudest  clamour,  and  sometimes  to  the  most  shocking 
violence  and  outrage.  They  are  desperate,  and  act  with  the 
extravagance  and  folly  of  desperate  men,  who  must  either 
starve,  or  frighten  their  masters  into  an  immediate  compliance 
with  their  demands.  The  masters  upon  these  occasions  are  just 
as  clamorous  upon  the  other  side,  and  never  cease  to  call  aloud 
for  the  assistance  of  the  civil  magistrate,  and  the  rigorous  ex- 
ecution of  those  laws  which  have  been  enacted  with  so  much 
severity  against  the  combinations  of  servants,  laborers,  and 
journeymen. 

"  But  though  in  disputes  with  their  workmen,  masters  must 
generally  have  the  advantage,  there  is  however  a  certain  rate, 
below  which  it  seems  impossible  to  reduce,  for  any  considerable 
time,  the  ordinary  wages   even  of  the  lowest  species   of  labor. 

"  A  man  must  always  live  by  his  work,  and  his  wages  must 
at  least  be  sufficient  to  maintain  him.  They  must  even  upon 
most  occasions  be  somewhat  more;  otherwise  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  him  to  bring  up  a  family,  and  the  race  of  such 
workmen  could  not   last  beyond   the  first  generation." 

Now,  my  friend,  I  know  that  some  of  your  pretended 
friends,  especially  politicians,  will  tell  you  that  Adam 
Smith  wrote  at  the  time  of  the  American  Revolution ; 
that  his  words  applied  to  England  in  that  day,  but  not 
to  the  United  States  to-day.  I  want  you  to  be  honest 
with  yourself,  to  consider  candidly  whether  in  your  ex- 
perience as  a  workman  you  have  found  conditions  to  be, 
on  the  whole,  just  as  Adam  Smith's  words  describe  them. 
I  trust  your  own  good  sense  in  this  and  everything. 


FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY  85 

Don't  let  the  politicians  frighten  you  with  a  show  of  book 
learning:  do  your  own  thinking. 

Capitalism  began  when  a  class  of  property  owners 
employed  other  men  to  work  for  wages.  The  tendency 
was  for  wages  to  keep  at  a  level  just  sufficient  to  enable 
the  workers  to  maintain  themselves  and  families.  They 
had  to  get  enough  for  families,  you  see,  in  order  to  re- 
produce their  kind  —  to  keep  up  the  supply  of  laborers. 

Competition  was  the  law  of  life  in  the  first  period  of 
capitalism.  Capitalists  competed  with  each  other  for 
markets.  They  were  engaged  in  a  mad  scramble  for 
profits.  Foreign  countries  were  attacked  and  new  mar- 
kets opened  up ;  new  inventions  were  rapidly  introduced. 
And  while  the  workers  found  that  in  normal  conditions 
the  employers  were  in  what  Adam  Smith  calls  "  a  tacit 
combination  "  to  keep  wages  down  to  the  lowest  level, 
and  were  obliged  to  combine  into  unions,  there  were 
times  when,  owing  to  the  fierce  competition  among  the 
employers,  and  the  demand  for  labor  being  greatly  in 
excess  of  the  supply,  wages  went  up  without  a  struggle 
owing  to  the  fact  that  one  employer  would  try  to  outbid 
another.  In  other  words,  temporarily,  the  natural, 
"  tacit  combination "  of  the  employers,  to  keep  down 
wages,  sometimes  broke  down. 

Competition  was  called  "  the  life  of  trade  "  in  those 
days,  and  in  a  sense  it  was  so.  Under  its  mighty  urge, 
new  continents  were  explored  and  developed  and  brought 
within  the  circle  of  civilization.  Sometimes  this  was 
done  by  means  of  brutal  and  bloody  wars,  for  capitalism 
is  never  particular  about  the  methods  it  adopts.  To  get 
profits  is  its  only  concern,  and  though  its  shekels  "  sweat 
blood  and  dirt,"  to  adapt  a  celebrated  phrase  of  Karl 
Marx,  nobody  cares.    Under  stress  of  competition,  also, 


86  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

the  development  of  mechanical  production  went  on  ?.t  a 
terrific  pace ;  navigation  vi^as  developed,  so  that  the  ocean 
became  as  a  common  highway. 

In  short,  Jonathan,  it  is  no  wonder  that  men  sang  the 
praises  of  competition,  that  some  of  the  greatest  thinkers 
of  the  time  looked  upon  competition  as  something  sacred. 
Even  the  workers,  seeing  that  they  got  higher  wages 
when  the  keen  and  fierce  competition  created  an  ex- 
cessive demand  for  labor,  joined  in  the  adoration  of 
competition  as  a  principle  —  but  among  themselves,  in 
their  struggles  for  better  conditions,  they  avoided  com- 
petition as  much  as  possible  and  combined.  Their  in- 
stincts as  wage-earners  made  them  keen  to  see  the  folly 
of  division  and  competition  among  themselves. 

So  competition,  considered  in  connection  with  the  evo- 
lution of  society,  had  many  good  features.  The  com- 
petitive period  was  just  as  "  good  "  as  any  other  period 
in  history  and  no  more  "  wicked  "  than  any  other  period. 

But  there  was  another  side  to  the  shield.  As  the  com- 
petitive struggle  among  individual  capitalists  went  on 
the  weakest  were  crushed  to  the  wall  and  fell  down  into 
the  ranks  of  the  wage  workers.  There  was  no  system  in 
production.  Word  came  to  the  commercial  world  that 
there  was  a  great  market  for  certain  manufactures  in  a 
foreign  land  and  at  once  hundreds  and  even  thousands 
of  factories  were  worked  to  their  utmost  limit  to  meet 
that  demand.  The  result  was  that  in  a  little  while  the 
thing  was  overdone:  there  was  a  glut  in  the  market, 
often  attended  by  panic,  stagnation  and  disaster.  Rath- 
bone  Greg  summed  up  the  evils  of  competition  in  the 
following  words : 

"  Competition  gluts  our  markets,  enables  the  rich  to 
take  advantage  of  the  necessity  of  the  poor,  makes  each 
man  snatch  the  bread  out  of  his  neighbor's  mouth,  con- 


FROM    COMPETITION   TO    MONOPOLY  87 

verts  a  nation  of  brethren  into  a  mass  of  hostile  units, 
and  finally  involves  capitalists  and  laborers  in  one  com- 
mon ruin." 

The  crises  due  to  this  unregulated  production,  and 
the  costliness  of  the  struggles,  led  to  the  formation  of 
joint-stock  companies.  Competition  was  giving  way  be- 
fore a  stronger  force,  the  force  of  co-operation.  There 
was  still  competition,  but  it  was  more  and  more  between 
giants.  To  adopt  a  very  homely  simile,  the  bigger  fish 
ate  up  the  little  ones  so  long  as  there  were  any,  and  then 
turned  to  a  struggle  among  themselves. 

Another  thing  that  forced  the  development  of  industry 
and  commerce  away  from  competitive  methods  was  the 
increasing  costliness  of  the  machinery  of  production.  The 
new  inventions,  first  of  steam-power  and  later  of  elec- 
tricity, involved  an  immense  outlay,  so  that  many  per- 
sons had  to  combine  their  capitals  in  one  common  fund. 

This  process  of  eliminating  competition  has  gone  on 
with  remarkable  swiftness,  so  that  we  have  now  the 
great  Trust  Problem.  Everyone  recognizes  to-day  that 
the  trusts  practically  control  the  life  of  the  nation.  It 
is  the  supreme  issue  in  our  politics  and  a  challenge  to 
the  heart  and  brain  of  the  nation. 

Fifty  years  ago  Karl  Marx,  the  great  Socialist  eco- 
nomist, made  the  remarkable  prophecy  that  this  condi- 
tion would  arise.  He  lived  in  the  heyday  of  competi- 
tion, when  it  seemed  utter  folly  to  talk  about  the  end  of 
competition.  He  analyzed  the  situation,  pointed  to  the 
process  of  big  capitalists  crushing  out  the  little  capital- 
ists, the  union  of  big  capitalists,  and  the  inevitable  drift 
toward  monopoly.  He  predicted  that  the  process  would 
continue  until  the  whole  industry,  the  main  agencies  of 
production  and  distribution  at  any  rate,  would  be  cen- 
tralized in  a  few  great  monopolies,  controlled  by  a  very 


88  COMMON    SEXSlL   OF    SOCIALISM 

small  handful  of  men.  He  showed  with  wonderful  clear- 
ness that  capitalism,  the  Great  Idea  of  buy  cheap  and  sell 
dear,  carried  within  itself  the  germs  of  its  own  destruc- 
tion. 

And,  of  course,  the  wiseacres  laughed.  The  learned 
ignorance  of  the  wiseacre  always  compels  him  to  laugh 
at  the  man  with  an  idea  that  is  new.  Didn't  the  wise- 
acres imprison  Galileo?  Haven't  they  persecuted  the 
pioneers  in  all  ages?  But  Time  has  a  habit  of  vindicat- 
ing the  pioneers  while  consigning  the  scoffing  wiseacres 
to  oblivion.  Fifty  years  is  a  short  time  in  human  evo- 
lution but  it  has  sufficed  to  establish  the  right  of  Marx 
to  an  honored  place  among  the  pioneers. 

More  than  twenty-five  years  after  Marx  made  his 
great  prediction,  there  came  to  this  country  on  a  visit 
Mr.  H.  M.  Hyndman,  an  English  economist  who  is  also 
known  as  one  of  the  foremost  living  exponents  of  Social- 
ism. The  intensity  of  the  competitive  struggle  was  most 
marked,  but  he  looked  below  the  surface  and  saw  a  subtle 
current,  a  drift  toward  monopoly,  which  had  gone  un- 
noticed. He  predicted  the  coming  of  the  era  of  great 
trusts  and  combines.  Again  the  \viseacres  in  their 
learned  ignorance  laughed  and  derided.  The  amiable 
gentleman  who  plays  the  part  of  flunkey  at  the  Court  of 
St.  James,  in  London,  wearing  plush  knee  breeches,  sil- 
ver-buckled shoes  and  powdered  wag,  a  marionette  in 
the  tinseled  show  of  King  Edward's  court,  was  one  of 
the  wiseacres.  He  was  then  editor  of  the  Neiv  York 
Tribune,  and  he  declared  that  ]Mr.  Hyndman  was  a  "  fool 
traveler  "  for  making  such  a  prediction.  But  in  the  very 
next  year  the  Standard  Oil  Company  was  formed ! 

So  we  have  the  trust  problem  with  us.  Out  of  the 
bitter  competitive  struggle  there  has  come  a  new  condi- 
tion, a  new  form  of  industrial  ownership  and  enterprise. 


FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY  89 

From  the  cradle  to  the  grave  we  are  encompassed  by 
the  trust. 

Now,  friend  Jonathan,  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the 
trusts  have  got  the  nation  by  the  throat.  You  know  it. 
But  there  is  a  passage,  a  question,  in  the  letter  you  wrote 
me  the  other  day  from  which  I  gather  that  you  have  not 
given  the  matter  very  close  attention.  You  ask  "  How 
will  the  Socialists  destroy  the  trusts  which  are  hurting 
the  people  ?  " 

I  suppose  that  comes  from  your  old  associations  with 
the  Democratic  Party.  You  think  that  it  is  possible  to 
destroy  the  trusts,  to  undo  the  chain  of  social  evolution, 
to  go  back  twenty  or  fifty  years  to  competitive  conditions. 
You  would  restore  competition.  I  have  purposely  gone 
into  the  historical  development  of  the  trust  in  order  to 
show  you  how  useless  it  would  be  to  destroy  the  trusts 
and  introduce  competition  again,  even  if  that  were  pos- 
sible. Now  that  you  have  mentally  traced  the  origin  of 
monopoly  to  its  causes  in  competition,  don't  you  see  that 
if  we  could  destroy  the  monopoly  to-morrow  and  start 
fresh  upon  a  basis  of  competition,  the  process  of  "  big 
fish  eat  little  fish  "  would  begin  again  at  once  —  for  that 
is  com  petition  f  And  if  the  big  ones  eat  the  little  ones  up, 
then  fight  among  themselves,  won't  the  result  be  as  be- 
fore —  that  either  one  will  crush  the  other,  leaving  a 
monopoly,  or  the  competitors  will  join  hands  and  agree 
not  to  fight,  leaving  monopoly  again? 

And,  Jonathan,  if  there  should  be  a  return  to  the  old- 
fashioned,  free-for-all  scramble  for  markets,  would  it  be 
any  better  for  the  workers?  Would  there  not  be  the 
same  old  struggle  between  the  capitalists  and  the  work- 
ers? Would  not  the  workers  still  have  to  give  much 
for  little ;  to  wear  their  lives  away  grinding  out  profits 
for   the    masters    of   their   bread,    of   their   very    lives? 


90  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

Would  there  not  be  gluts  as  before,  with  panics,  n^^^e'^, 
unemployed  armies  sullenly  parading  the  streets  ;  idltr^  in 
mansions  and  toilers  in  hovels?  You  know  very  well 
that  there  would  be  all  these,  my  friend,  and  I  know  that 
you  are  too  sensible  a  fellow  to  think  any  longer  about 
destroying  the  trusts.  It  cannot  be  done,  Jonathan,  and 
it  would  not  be  a  good  thing  if  it  could  be  done. 

I  think,  my  friend,  that  you  will  see  upon  reflectiot. 
that  there  are  many  excellent  features  about  the  trust 
which  it  would  be  criminal  and  foolish  to  detroy  had  we 
the  power.  Competition  means  waste,  foolish  and  un- 
necessary waste.  Trusts  have  been  organized  expressly 
to  do  away  with  the  waste  of  men  and  natural  re- 
sources. They  represent  economical  production.  When 
Mr.  Perkins,  of  the  New  York  Life  Insurance  Company, 
was  testifying  before  the  insurance  investigating  com- 
mittee he  gave  expression  to  the  philosophy  of  the  trust 
movement  by  saying  that,  in  the  modem  view,  competi- 
tion is  the  law  of  death  and  that  co-operation  and  or- 
ganization represent  life  and  progress. 

While  the  wage-workers  are  probably  in  many  respects 
better  off  as  a  result  of  the  trustification  of  industry,  it 
would  be  idle  to  deny  that  there  are  many  evils  con- 
nected with  it.  No  one  who  views  the  situation  calmly 
can  deny  that  the  trusts  exert  an  enormous  power  over 
the  government  of  the  country,  that  they  are,  in  fact,  the 
real  government  of  the  country,  exercising  far  more 
control  over  the  lives  of  the  common  people  than  the 
regularly  constituted,  constitutional  government  of  the 
country  does.  It  is  also  true  that  they  can  arbitrarily 
fix  prices  in  many  instances,  so  that  the  natural  law  of 
value  is  set  aside  and  the  workers  are  exploited  as  con- 
sumers, as  purchasers  of  the  things  necessary  to  life, 
just  as  they  are  exploited  as  producers. 


FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY  9I 

Of  course,  friend  Jonathan,  wages  must  meet  the  cost 
of  Hving.  If  prices  rise  considerably,  wages  must  sooner 
or  later  follow,  and  if  prices  fall  wages  likewise  will  fall 
sooner  or  later.  But  it  is  important  to  remember  that 
when  prices  fall  wages  are  quick  to  follow,  while  when 
prices  soar  higher  and  higher  wages  are  very  slow  to 
follow.  That  is  why  it  wouldn't  do  us  any  good  to  have 
a  law  regulating  prices,  supposing  that  a  law  forcing 
down  prices  could  be  enacted  and  enforced.  Wages 
would  follow  prices  downward  with  wonderful  swift- 
ness. And  that  is  why,  also,  we  do  need  to  become  the 
masters  of  the  wealth  we  produce.  For  wages  climb 
upward  with  leaden  feet,  my  friend,  when  prices  soar 
with  eagle  wings.  It  is  always  the  workers  who  are  at 
a  disadvantage  in  a  system  where  one  class  controls  the 
means  of  producing  and  distributing  wealth. 

But,  friend  Jonathan,  that  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
advantages  of  the  trust  form  of  industry  are  not  used  as 
well  as  they  might  be.  They  are  all  grasped  by  the 
master  class.  The  trouble  with  the  trust  is  simply  this : 
the  people  as  a  whole  do  not  share  the  benefits.  We 
continue  the  same  old  wage  system  under  the  new  forms 
of  industry:  we  have  not  changed  our  mode  of  dis- 
tributing the  wealth  produced  so  as  to  conform  to  the 
new  modes  of  producing  it.  The  heart  of  the  economic 
conflict  is  right  there. 

We  must  find  a  remedy  for  this,  Jonathan.  Labor 
unionism  is  a  good  thing,  but  it  is  no  remedy  for  this 
condition.  It  is  a  valuable  weapon  with  which  to  fight 
for  better  wages  and  shorter  hours,  and  every  working- 
man  ought  to  belong  to  the  union  of  his  trade  or  call- 
ing. But  unionism  does  not  and  cannot  do  away  with 
the  profit  system ;  it  cannot  break  the  power  of  the  trusts 
to  extort  monopoly  prices  from  the  people.     To  do  these 


92  COMMON    SENSm   OF   SOCIALISM 

things  we  must  bring  into  play  the  forces  of  government : 
we  must  vote  a  new  status  for  the  trust.  The  union  is 
for  the  economic  struggle  of  groups  of  workers  day  by 
day  against  the  master  class  so  long  as  the  present  class 
division  exists.  But  that  is  not  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem. What  we  need  to  do  is  to  vote  the  class  divisions 
out  of  existence.     We  need  to  oivn  the  trusts,  Jonathan! 

This  is  the  Socialist  position.  What  is  needed  now 
is  the  harmonizing  of  our  social  relations  with  the  new 
forms  of  production.  When  private  property  came  into 
the  primitive  world  in  the  form  of  slavery,  social  rela- 
tions were  changed  and  from  a  rude  communism  society 
passed  into  a  system  of  individualism  and  class  rule. 
When,  later  on,  slave  labor  gave  way  before  serf  labor, 
the  social  relations  were  again  modified  to  correspond. 
When  capitalism  came,  with  wage-paid  labor  as  its  basis, 
all  the  laws  and  institutions  which  stood  in  the  way  of 
the  free  development  of  the  new  principle  were  swept 
away ;  new  social  relations  were  established,  new  laws 
and  institutions  introduced  to  meet  its  needs. 

To-day,  in  America,  we  are  suffering  because  our  social 
relations  are  not  in  harmony  with  the  changed  methods 
of  producing  wealth.  We  have  got  the  laws  and  insti- 
tutions which  were  designed  to  meet  the  needs  of  com- 
petitive industry.  They  suited  those  old  conditions  fairly 
well,  but  they  do  not  suit  the  new. 

In  a  former  letter,  you  will  remember,  I  likened  our 
present  suffering  to  a  case  of  appendicitis,  that  society 
suffers  from  the  trouble  set  up  within  by  an  organ  whicK 
has  lost  its  function  and  needs  to  be  cut  out.  Perhaps 
I  might  better  liken  society  to  a  woman  in  the  travail  of 
childbirth,  suflfering  the  pangs  of  labor  incidental  to  the 
deliverance  of  the  new  life  within  her  womb.    The  trust 


FROM    COMPETITION    TO    MONOPOLY  93 

marks  the  highest  development  of  capitalist  society :  it 
can  go  no  further. 

The  Old  Order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new. 

And  the  new  order,  waiting  now  for  deliverance  from 
the  womb  of  the  old,  is  Socialism,  the  fraternal  state. 
Whether  the  birth  of  the  new  order  is  to  be  peaceful  or 
violent  and  painful,  whether  it  will  be  ushered  in  with 
glad  shouts  of  triumphant  men  and  women,  or  with  the 
noise  of  civil  strife,  depends,  my  good  friend,  upon  the 
manner  in  which  you  and  all  other  workers  discharge 
your  responsibilities  as  citizens.  That  is  why  I  am  so 
anxious  to  set  the  claims  of  Socialism  clearly  before 
you:  I  want  you  to  work  for  the  peaceful  revolution 
of  society,  Jonathan. 

For  the  present,  I  am  only  going  to  ask  you  to  read  a 
little  five  cent  pamphlet,  by  Gaylord  Wilshire,  called 
The  SigniRcance  of  the  Trust,  and  a  little  book  by 
Frederick  Engels,  called  Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scien- 
tific. Later  on,  when  I  have  had  a  chance  to  explain 
Socialism  in  a  general  way,  and  must  then  leave  you  to 
your  own  resources,  I  intend  to  make  for  you  a  list  of 
books,  which  I  hope  you  will  be  able  to  read. 

You  see,  Jonathan,  I  remember  always  that  you  wrote 
me:  "Whether  Socialism  is  good  or  bad,  wise  or  fool- 
ish, /  want  to  know."  The  best  way  to  know  is  to  study 
the  question  for  yourself. 


VTII 

WHAT    SOCIALISM    IS    AND    WHAT    IT    IS    NOT 


Socialism  is  industrial  deniocracy.  It  would  put  an  end  to 
the  irresponsible  control  of  economic  interests,  and  substitute 
popular  self-government  in  the  industrial  as  in  the  political 
world. —  Charles  H.  Vail. 

Socialism  says  that  man,  machinery  and  land  must  be  brought 
together;  that  the  toll  gates  of  capitalism  must  be  torn  down, 
and  that  every  human  being's  opportunity  to  produce  the  means 
with  which  to  sustain  life  shall  be  considered  as  sacred  as  his 
right  to  live. —  Allan  L.  Benson. 

Socialism  means  that  all  those  things  upon  which  the  people 
in  common  depend  shall  by  the  people  in  common  be  owned  and 
administered.  It  means  that  the  tools  of  employment  shall  belong 
to  their  creators  and  users ;  that  all  production  shall  be  for 
the  direct  use  of  the  producers ;  that  the  making  of  goods  for 
profit  shall  come  to  an  end;  that  we  shall  all  be  workers  to- 
gether; and  that  all  opportunities  shall  be  open  and  equal  to  all 
men. —  National  Platform  of  the  Socialist  Party,  1904. 
"'  Socialism  does  not  consist  in  violently  seizing  upon  the  prop- 
erty of  the  rich  and  sharing  it  out  amongst  the  poor. 

Socialism  is  not  a  wild  dream  of  a  happy  land  where  the 
apples  will  drop  off  the  trees  into  our  open  mouths,  the  fish  come 
out  of  the  rivers  and  fry  themselves  for  dinner,  and  the  looms 
turn  out  ready-made  suits  of  velvet  with  golden  buttons  without 
the  trouble  of  coaling  the  engine.  Neither  is  it  a  dream  of  a 
nation  of  stained-glass  angels,  who  never  say  damn,  who  always 
love  their  neighbors  better  than  themselves,  and  who  never  need 
to  work  unless  they  wish  to. —  Robert  Blatchford. 

By  this  time,  friend  Jonathan,  you  have,  I  hope,  got 
rid  of  the  notion  that  Socialism  is  a  ready-made  scheme 

94 


WHAT   SOCIALISM    IS   AND   WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  95 

of  society  which  a  few  wise  men  have  planned,  and  which 
their  followers  are  trying  to  get  adopted.  I  have  spent 
some  time  and  effort  trying  to  make  it  perfectly  plain  to 
you  tliat  great  social  changes  are  not  brought  about  in 
that  fashion. 

Socialism  then,  is  a  philosophy  of  human  progress,  a 
theory  of  social  evolution,  the  main  outlines  of  which  1 
have  already  sketched  for  you.  Because  the  subject  is 
treated  at  much  greater  length  in  some  of  the  books  I 
have  asked  you  to  read,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to 
elaborate  the  theory.  It  will  be  sufficient,  probably,  for 
me  to  restate,  in  a  very  few  words,  the  main  principles  of 
that  theory: 

The  present  social  system  throughout  the  civilized 
world  is  not  the  result  of  deliberately  copying  some  plan 
devised  by  wise  men.  It  is  the  result  of  long  centuries  of 
growth  and  development.  From  our  present  position  we 
look  back  over  the  blood-blotted  pages  of  history,  back  to 
the  ages  before  men  began  to  write  their  history  and  their 
thoughts,  through  the  centuries  of  which  there  is  only 
faint  tradition;  we  go  even  further  back,  to  the  very 
beginning  of  human  existence,  to  the  men-apes  and  the 
ape-men  whose  existence  science  has  made  clear  to  us, 
and  we  see  the  race  engaged  in  a  long  struggle  to 

Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die. 

We  look  for  the  means  whereby  the  progress  of  man 
has  been  made,  and  find  that  his  tools  have  been,  so  to 
say,  the  ladder  upon  which  he  has  risen  in  the  age-long 
climb  from  bondage  toward  brotherhood,  from  being  a 
brute  armed  with  a  club  to  the  sovereign  of  the  universe, 
controlling  tides,  harnessing  winds,  gathering  the  light- 
ning in  his  hands  and  reaching  to  the  farthest  star. 


96  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

We  find  in  every  epoch  of  that  long  evolution  the 
means  of  producing  wealth  as  the  center  of  all,  trans- 
forming government,  laws,  institutions  and  moral  codes 
to  meet  their  limitations  and  their  needs.  Nothing  has 
ever  been  strong  enough  to  restrain  the  economic  forces 
in  social  evolution.  When  laws  and  customs  have  stood 
in  the  way  of  the  economic  forces  they  have  been  burst 
asunder  as  by  some  mighty  leaven,  or  hurled  aside  in 
the  cyclonic  sweep  of  revolutions. 

Have  you  ever  gone  into  the  country,  Jonathan,  and 
noticed  an  immense  rock  split  and  shattered  by  the  roots 
of  a  tree,  or  perhaps  by  the  might  of  an  insignificant 
looking  fungus?  I  have,  many  times,  and  I  never  see 
such  a  rock  without  thinking  of  its  aptness  as  an  illus- 
tration of  this  Socialist  philosophy.  A  tiny  acorn  tossed 
by  the  wind  finds  lodgment  in  some  small  crevice  of  a 
rock  which  has  stood  for  thousands  of  years,  a  rock  so 
big  and  strong  that  men  choose  it  as  an  emblem  of  the 
Everlasting.  Soon  the  warm  caresses  of  the  sun  and  the 
rain  wake  the  latent  life  in  the  acorn ;  the  shell  breaks 
and  a  frail  little  shoot  of  vegetable  life  appears,  so  small 
that  an  infant  could  crush  it.  Yet  that  weak  and  puny 
thing  grows  on  unobserved,  striking  its  rootlets  farther 
into  the  crevice  of  the  rock.  And  when  there  is  no 
more  room  for  it  to  grow,  it  does  not  die,  but  makes 
room  for  itself  by  shattering  the  rock. 

Economic  forces  are  like  that,  my  friend,  they  must 
expand  and  grow.  Nothing  can  long  restrain  them.  A 
new  method  of  producing  wealth  broke  up  the  primi- 
tive communism  of  prehistoric  man;  another  change  in 
the  methods  of  production  hurled  the  feudal  barons  from 
power  and  forced  the  establishment  of  a  new  social  sys- 
tem. And  now,  we  are  on  the  eve  of  another  great 
change  —  nay,  we  are  in  the  very  midst  of  the  change. 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  97 

Capitalism  is  doomed!  Not  because  men  think  it  is 
wicked,  but  because  the  development  of  the  great  in- 
dustrial trusts  compels  a  new  political  and  social  system 
to  meet  the  needs  of  the  new  mode  of  production. 

Something  has  got  to  give  way  to  the  irresistible 
growing  force!  A  change  is  inevitable.  And  the 
change  must  be  to  Socialism.  That  is  the  belief  of  the 
Socialists,  Jonathan,  which  I  am  trying  to  make  you 
understand.  Mind,  I  do  not  say  that  the  coming  change 
will  be  the  last  change  in  human  evolution,  that  there  will 
be  no  further  development  after  Socialism.  I  do  not 
know  what  lies  beyond,  nor  to  what  heights  humanity 
may  attain  in  future  years.  It  may  be  that  thousands 
or  millions  of  years  from  now  the  race  will  have  attained 
to  such  a  state  of  growth  and  power  that  the  poorest  and 
weakest  man  then  alive  will  be  so  much  superior  to  the 
greatest  men  alive  to-day,  our  best  scholars,  poets,  art- 
ists, inventors  and  statesmen,  as  these  are  superior  to 
the  cave-man.  It  may  be.  I  do  not  know.  Only  a 
fool  would  seek  to  set  mete  and  bound  to  man's  possi- 
bilities. 

We  are  concerned  only  with  the  change  that  is  immi- 
nent, the  change  that  is  now  going  on  before  our  eyes. 
We  say  that  the  outcome  of  society's  struggle  with  the 
trust  problem  must  be  the  control  of  the  trust  by  society. 
That  the  outcome  of  the  struggle  between  the  master 
class  and  the  slave  class,  between  the  wealth  makers  and 
the  wealth  takers,  must  be  the  victory  of  the  makers. 

Throughout  all  history,  ever  since  the  first  appearance 
of  private  property  —  of  slavery  and  land  ownership  — 
there  have  been  class  struggles.  Slave  and  slave-owner, 
serf  and  baron,  wage-slave  and  capitalist  —  so  the  classes 
have  struggled.  And  what  has  been  the  issue,  thus  far? 
Chattel  slavery  gave  way  to  serfdom,  in  which  the  op- 


98  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

pression  was  lighter  and  the  oppressed  gained  some 
measure  of  human  recognition.  Serfdom,  in  its  turn, 
gave  way  to  the  wages  system,  in  which,  despite  many 
evils,  the  oppressed  class  lives  upon  a  far  higher  plane 
than  the  slave  and  serf  classes  from  whence  it  sprang. 
Now,  with  the  capitalists  unable  to  hold  and  manage  the 
great  machinery  of  production  which  has  been  devel- 
oped, with  the  workers  awakened  to  their  power,  armed 
with  knowledge,  with  education,  and,  above  all,  with  the 
power  to  make  the  laws,  the  government,  what  they  will, 
can  anybody  doubt  what  the  outcome  will  be? 

It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  we  shall  continue  to 
leave  the  things  upon  which  all  depend  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  members  of  society.  Now  that  production  has 
been  so  organized  that  it  can  be  readily  controlled  and 
directed  from  a  few  centers,  it  is  possible  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  civilization  for  men  to  live  together 
in  peace  and  plenty,  owning  in  common  the  things  which 
must  be  used  in  common,  which  are  needed  in  common ; 
leaving  to  private  ownership  the  things  which  can  be 
privately  owned  without  injury  to  society.  And  that  is 
Socialism. 

I  have  explained  the  philosophy  of  social  evolution 
upon  which  modern  Socialism  is  based  as  clearly  as  I 
could  do  in  the  space  at  my  disposal.  I  want  you  to 
think  it  out  for  yourself,  Jonathan.  I  want  you  to  get 
the  enthusiasm  and  the  inspiration  which  come  from  a 
realization  of  the  fact  that  progress  is  the  law  of  Na- 
ture ;  that  mankind  is  ever  marching  upward  and  on- 
ward ;  that  Socialism  is  the  certain  inheritor  of  all  the 
ages  of  struggle,  suffering  and  aecumulation. 

And  above  all,  I  want  you  to  realize  the  position  of 
your  class,  my  friend,  and  your  duty  to  stand  with  your 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT  IT   IS  NOT  99 

class,  not  only  as  a  union  man,  but  as  a  voter  and  a 
citizen. 

As  a  system  of  political  economy  I  need  say  little  of 
Socialism,  beyond  recounting  some  of  the  things  we 
have  already  considered,  A  great  many  learned  ignorant 
men,  like  Mr.  Mallock,  for  instance,  are  fond  of  telling 
the  workers  that  the  economic  teachings  of  Socialism 
are  unsound;  that  Karl  Marx  was  really  a  very  super- 
ficial thinker  whose  ideas  have  been  entirely  discredited. 

Now,  Karl  Marx  has  been  dead  twenty-five  years, 
Jonathan.  His  great  work  was  done  a  generation  ago. 
Being  just  a  human  being,  like  the  rest  of  us,  it  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  he  was  infallible.  There  are  some 
things  in  his  writings  which  cannot  be  accepted  without 
modification.  But  what  does  that  matter,  so  long  as 
the  essential  princples  are  sound  and  true?  When  we 
think  of  a  great  man  like  Lincoln  we  do  not  trouble  about 
the  little  things  —  the  trivial  mistakes  he  made ;  we  con- 
sider only  the  big  things,  the  noble  things,  the  true  things, 
he  said  and  did. 

But  there  are  lots  of  little-minded,  little-souled  people 
in  the  world  who  have  eyes  only  for  the  little  flaws  and 
none  at  all  for  the  big,  strong  and  enduring  things  in  a 
man's  work.  I  never  think  of  these  critics  of  Marx 
without  calling  to  mind  an  incident  I  witnessed  two  or 
three  years  ago  at  an  art  exhibition  in  New  York. 
There  was  placed  on  exhibition  a  famous  Greek  marble, 
a  statue  of  Aphrodite.  Many  people  went  to  see  it  and 
on  several  occasions  when  I  saw  it  I  observed  that  some 
people  had  been  enough  stirred  to  place  little  bunches  of 
flowers  at  the  feet  of  the  statue  as  a  tender  tribute  to  its 
beauty.  But  one  day  I  was  greatly  annoyed  by  the  pres- 
ence of  a  critical  woman  who  had  discovered  a  little  flaw 


lOO  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

in  the  statue,  where  a  bit  had  been  broken  off.  She  cli«t- 
tered  about  it  like  an  excited  magpie.  Poor  soul,  she 
had  no  eyes  for  the  beauty  of  the  thing,  the  mystery 
which  shrouded  its  past  stirred  no  emotions  in  her  breast. 
She  was  only  just  big  enough  in  mind  and  soul  to  see 
the  Haw.  I  pitied  her,  Jonathan,  as  I  pity  many  of  the 
critics  who  write  learned  books  to  prove  that  the  eco- 
nomic principles  of  Socialism  are  wrong.  I  cannot  read 
such  a  book  but  a  vision  rises  before  my  mind's  eye  of 
that  woman  and  the  statue. 

I  believe  that  the  great  fundamental  principles  laid 
down  by  Karl  Marx  cannot  be  refuted,  because  they  are 
true.  But  it  is  just  as  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  Social- 
ism does  not  depend  upon  Karl  Marx.  If  all  his  works 
could  be  destroyed  and  his  name  forgotten  there  would 
still  be  a  Socialist  movement  to  contend  with.  The 
question  is:  Are  the  economic  principles  of  Socalism 
as  it  is  taught  to-day  true  or  false  ? 

The  first  principle  w  that  wealth  in  modern  lociety 
consists  in  an  abundance  of  things  which  can  be  sold 
for  profit. 

So  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  economist  6i  note  who 
makes  any  objection  to  that  statement.  I  know  that 
sometimes  political  economists  confuse  their  readers  and 
themselves  by  a  loose  use  of  the  term  wealth,  including 
in  it  many  things  which  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with 
economics.  Good  health  and  cheerful  spirits,  for  ex- 
ample, are  often  spoken  of  as  wealth  and  there  is  a  cer- 
tain primal  sense  in  which  that  word  is  rightly  applied 
to  them.     You  remember  the  poem  by  Charles  Ma^'kay  — 

Clcon  hath  a  million  acres,  ne'er  a  one  have  I; 
Cleon  dwelleth  in  a  palace,  in  a  cottage  I ; 
Cleon  hath  a  dozen  fortunes,  not  a  penny  I; 
Yet  the  poorer  of  the  twain  is  Cleon,  and  not  L 


WHAT   SOCIALISM    IS  AND   WHAT   IT   IS   NOT  lOI 

In  a  great  moral  sense  that  is  all  true,  Jonathan,  but  from 
the  point  of  view  of  political  economy,  Cleon  of  the 
million  acres,  the  palace  and  the  dozen  fortunes  must  be 
regarded  as  the  richer  of  the  two. 

The  second  principle  is  that  wealth  is  produced  by 
labor  applied  to  natural  resources. 

The  only  objections  to  this,  the  only  attempts  ever 
made  to  deny  its  truth,  have  been  based  upon  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  labor."  If  a 
man  came  to  you  in  the  mill  one  day,  and  said :  "  See 
that  great  machine  with  all  its  levers  and  springs  and 
wheels  working  in  such  beautiful  harmony.  It  was 
made  entirely  by  manual  workers,  such  as  moulders, 
blacksmiths  and  machinsts ;  no  brain  workers  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  it,"  you  would  suspect  that  man  of 
being  a  fool,  Jonathan.  You  know,  even  though  you 
are  no  economist,  that  the  labor  of  the  inventor  and  of 
the  men  who  drew  the  plans  of  the  various  parts  was 
just  as  necessary  as  the  labor  of  the  manual  workers.  I 
have  already  shown  you,  when  discussing  the  case  of 
Mr.  Mallock,  that  Socialists  have  never  claimed  that 
wealth  was  produced  by  manual  labor  alone,  and  that 
brain  labor  is  always  unproductive.  All  the  great  po- 
litical economists  have  included  both  mental  and  manual 
labor  in  their  use  of  the  term,  that  being,  indeed,  the 
only  sensible  use  of  the  word  known  to  our  language. 

It  is  very  easy  work,  my  friend,  for  a  clever  juggler 
of  words  to  erect  a  straw  man,  label  the  dummy  "  Social- 
ism "  and  then  pull  it  to  pieces.  But  it  is  not  very  use- 
ful work,  nor  is  it  an  honest  intellectual  occupation.  I 
say  to  you,  friend  Jonathan,  that  when  writers  like  Mr. 
Mallock  contend  that  "  ability,"  as  distinguished  from 
labor,  must  be  considered  as  a  principal  factor  in  pro- 
duction, they  must  be  regarded  as  being  either  mentally 


102  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

weak  or  deliberate  perverters  of  the  truth.  You  know, 
and  every  man  of  fair  sense  knows,  that  ability  in  the 
abstract  never  could  produce  anything  at  all. 

Take  Mr.  Edison,  for  example.  He  is  a  man  of  won- 
derful ability  —  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  this  or  any 
other  age.  Suppose  Mr.  Edison  were  to  say :  "  I  know 
I  have  a  great  deal  of  ability;  I  think  that  I  will  just  sit 
down  with  folded  hands  and  depend  upon  the  mere  pos- 
session of  my  ability  to  make  a  living  for  me  " —  what  do 
you  think  would  happen?  If  Mr.  Edison  were  to  go  to 
some  lonely  spot,  without  tools  or  food,  making  up  his 
mind  that  he  need  not  work ;  that  he  could  safely  depend 
upon  his  ability  to  produce  food  for  him  while  he  sat  idle 
or  slept,  he  would  starve.  Ability  is  like  a  machine,  Jona- 
than. If  you  have  the  finest  machine  in  the  world  and 
keep  it  in  a  garret  it  will  produce  nothing  at  all.  You 
might  as  well  have  a  pile  of  stones  there  as  the  machine. 

But  connect  the  machine  with  the  motor  and  place  a 
competent  man  in  charge  of  it,  and  the  machine  at  once 
becomes  a  means  of  production.  Ability  is  likewise  use- 
less and  impotent  unless  it  is  expressed  in  the  form  of 
either  manual  or  mental  labor.  And  when  it  is  so  em- 
bodied in  labor,  it  is  quite  useless  and  foolish  to  talk  of 
ability  as  separate  from  the  labor  in  which  it  is  em- 
bodied. 

The  third  principle  of  Socialist  economics  is  that  the 
value  of  things  produced  for  sale  is,  under  normal  con- 
ditions, determined  by  the  amount  of  labor  socially  neces- 
sary, on  an  az^erage,  for  their  production.  This  is  called 
the  labor  theory  of  value. 

Many  people  have  attacked  this  theory,  Jonathan,  and 
it  has  been  ''  refuted,"  "  upset,"  "  smashed  "  and  "  de- 
stroyed "  by  nearly  every  hack  writer  on  economics  liv- 
ing.    But,  for  some  reason,  the  number  of  people  who 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS   NOT         IO3 

accept  it  is  constantly  increasing  in  spite  of  the  number 
of  times  it  has  been  "  exposed  "  and  "  refuted."  It  is 
worth  our  while  to  consider  it  briefly. 

You  will  observe  that  I  have  made  two  important 
qualifications  in  the  above  statement  of  the  theory :  first, 
that  the  law  applies  only  to  things  produced  for  sale,  and 
second,  that  it  is  only  under  normal  conditions  that  it 
holds  true.  Many  very  clever  men  try  to  prove  this 
law  of  value  wrong  by  citing  the  fact  that  articles  are 
sometimes  sold  for  enormous  prices,  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  the  amount  of  labor  it  took  to  produce  them  in 
the  first  instance.  For  example,  it  took  Shakespeare 
only  a  few  minutes  to  write  a  letter,  we  may  suppose, 
but  if  a  genuine  letter  in  the  poet's  handwriting  were 
offered  for  sale  in  one  of  the  auction  rooms  where  such 
things  are  sold  it  would  fetch  an  enormous  price,  per- 
haps more  than  the  yearly  salary  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States. 

The  value  of  the  letter  would  not  be  due  to  the  amount 
of  labor  Shakespeare  devoted  to  the  writing  of  it,  but  to 
its  rarity.  It  would  have  what  the  economists  call  a 
"  scarcity  value."  The  same  is  true  of  a  great  many 
other  things,  such  as  historical  relics,  great  works  of  art, 
and  so  on.  These  things  are  in  a  class  by  themselves. 
But  they  constitute  no  important  part  of  the  business  of 
modern  society.  We  are  not  concerned  with  them,  but 
with  the  ordinary,  every  day  production  of  goods  for 
sale.  The  truth  of  this  law  of  value  is  not  to  be  de- 
termined by  considering  these  special  objects  of  rarity, 
but  the  great  mass  of  things  produced  in  our  workshops 
and  factories. 

Now,  note  the  second  qualification.  I  say  that  the 
value  of  things  produced  for  sale  under  normal  condi- 
tions is  determined  by  the  amount  of  labor  socially  neces- 


104  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

sary,  on  an  average,  for  their  production.  Some  of  the 
clever,  learnedly-ignorant  writers  on  Socialism  think  that 
they  have  completely  destroyed  this  theory  of  value  when 
they  have  only  misrepresented  it  and  crushed  the  image 
of  their  own  creating. 

It  does  not  mean  that  if  a  quick,  efficient  workman, 
with  good  tools,  takes  a  day  to  make  a  coat,  while  an- 
other workman,  who  is  slow,  clumsy  and  inefficient,  and 
has  only  poor  tools,  takes  six  days  to  make  a  table  that 
the  table  will  be  worth  six  coats  upon  the  market.  That 
would  be  a  foolish  proposition,  Jonathan.  It  would 
mean  that  if  one  workman  made  a  coat  in  one  day,  while 
another  workman  took  two  days  to  make  exactly  the 
same  kind  of  coat,  that  the  one  made  by  the  slow,  ineffi- 
cient workman  would  bring  twice  as  much  as  the  other, 
even  though  they  were  so  much  alike  that  they  could 
not  be  distinguished  one  from  the  other. 

Only  an  ignoramus  could  believe  that.  No  Socialis; 
writer  ever  made  such  a  foolish  claim,  yet  all  the  attacks 
upon  the  economic  principles  of  Socialism  are  based  upon 
that  idea! 

Now  that  I  have  told  you  what  it  does  not  mean,  let 
me  try  to  make  plain  just  what  it  does  mean.  I  shall 
use  a  very  simple  illustration  which  you  can  readily  ap- 
ply to  the  whole  of  industry  for  yourself.  If  it  ordi- 
narily takes  a  day  to  make  a  coat,  if  that  is  the  average 
time  taken,  and  it  also  takes  on  an  average  a  day  to 
make  a  table,  then,  also  on  an  average,  one  coat  will  be 
worth  just  as  much  as  one  table.  But  I  must  explain 
that  it  is  not  possible  to  bring  the  production  of  coats 
and  tables  down  to  the  simple  measurement.  When  the 
tailor  takes  the  piece  of  cloth  to  cut  out  the  coat,  he  has 
in  that  material  something  that  already  embodies  human 
labor.     Somebody  had  to  weave  that  cloth  upon  a  loom. 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS   AND   WHAT   IT   IS   NOT         105 

Before  that  somebody  had  to  make  the  loom.  And  be- 
fore that  loom  could  make  cloth  somebody  had  to  raise 
sheep  and  shear  them  to  get  the  wool.  And  before  the 
carpenter  could  make  the  table,  somebody  had  to  go  into 
the  forest  and  fell  a  tree,  after  which  somebody  had  to 
bring  that  tree,  cut  up  into  planks  or  logs,  to  the  car- 
penter. And  before  he  could  use  the  lumber  somebody 
had  to  make  the  tools  with  which  he  worked. 

I  think  you  will  understand  now  why  I  placed  empha- 
sis on  the  words  "  socially  necessary."  It  is  not  possible 
for  the  individual  buyer  to  ascertain  just  how  much  social 
labor  is  contained  in  a  coat  or  a  table,  but  their  values  are 
fixed  by  the  competition  and  higgling  which  is  the  law 
of  capitalism.  "  It  jest  works  out  so,"  as  an  old  negro 
preacher  said  to  me  once. 

I  have  said  that  competition  is  the  law  of  capitalism. 
All  political  economists  recognize  that  as  true.  But  we 
have,  as  I  have  explained  in  a  former  letter,  come  to  a 
point  where  capitalism  has  broken  away  from  competi- 
tion in  many  industries.  We  have  a  state  of  affairs 
under  which  the  economic  laws  of  competitive  society  do 
not  apply.  Monopoly  prices  have  always  been  regarded 
as  exceptions  to  economic  law. 

If  this  technical  economic  discussion  seems  a  little  bit 
difficult,  I  beg  you  nevertheless  to  try  and  master  it, 
Jonathan.  It  will  do  you  good  to  think  out  these  ques- 
tions. Perhaps  I  can  explain  more  clearly  what  is  meant 
by  monopoly  conditions  being  exceptional.  All  through 
the  Middle  Ages  it  was  the  custom  for  governments  to 
grant  monopolies  to  favored  subjects,  or  to  sell  them  in 
order  to  raise  ready  money.  Queen  Elizabeth,  for  in- 
stance, granted  and  sold  many  such  monopolies. 

A  man  who  had  a  monopoly  of  something  which  nearly 
everybody  had  to  use  could  fix  his  own  price,  the  only 


I06  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

limit  being  the  people's  patience  or  their  ability  to  pay. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  patented  articles  and  of  monop- 
olies granted  to  public  service  corporations.  Generally, 
it  is  true,  in  the  franchises  of  these  corporations,  nowa- 
days, there  is  a  price  limit  fixed  beyond  which  Ihey  must 
not  go,  but  it  is  still  true  that  the  normal  competitive 
economic  law  has  been  set  aside  by  the  creation  of 
monopoly. 

When  a  trust  is  formed,  or  when  there  is  a  price 
agreement,  or  what  is  politely  called  "  an  undei  standing 
among  gentlemen  "  to  that  effect,  a  similar  thing  hap- 
pens.    We  have  monopoly  prices. 

This  is  an  important  thing  for  the  working  class, 
though  it  is  sometimes  forgotten.  How  much  your 
wages  will  secure  in  the  way  of  necessities  is  just  as  im- 
portant to  you  as  the  amount  of  wages  you  get.  In 
other  words,  the  amount  you  can  get  in  comforts  and 
commodities  for  use  is  just  as  important  as  the  amount 
you  can  get  in  dollars  and  cents.  Sometimes  money 
wages  increase  while  real  wages  decrease.  I  could  fill  a 
book  with  statistics  to  show  this,  but  I  will  only  quote  one 
example.  Professor  Rauschenbusch  cites  it  in  his  excel- 
lent book,  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis,  a  book  I 
should  like  you  to  read,  Jonathan.  He  quotes  Dun's  Re- 
view, a  standard  financial  authority,  to  the  effect  that  what 
$724  would  buy  in  1897  it  took  $1013  to  buy  in  1901. 

I  know  that  I  could  make  your  wife  see  the  importance 
of  this,  my  friend.  She  would  tell  you  that  when  from 
time  to  time  you  have  announced  that  your  wages  were 
to  be  increased  five  or  ten  per  cent,  she  has  made  plans 
for  spending  the  money  upon  little  home  improvements, 
or  perhaps  for  laying  it  aside  for  the  dreaded  "  rainy 
day."  Perhaps  she  thought  of  getting  a  new  rug,  or  a 
new  sideboard  for  the  dining-room ;  or  perhaps  it  was  a 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT         10/ 

piano  for  your  daughter,  who  is  musical,  she  had  set  her 
heart  on  getting.  The  ten  per  cent,  increase  seemed  to 
make  it  all  so  easy  and  certain!  But  after  a  little  while 
she  found  that  somehow  the  ten  per  cent,  did  not  bring 
the  coveted  things;  that,  although  she  was  just  as  careful 
as  could  be,  she  couldn't  save,  nor  get  the  things  she 
hoped  to  get. 

Often  you  and  I  have  heard  the  cry  of  trouble :  "  I 
don't  know  how  or  why  it  is,  but  though  I  get  ten  per 
cent,  more  wages  I  am  no  better  off  than  before." 

The  Socialist  theory  of  value  is  all  right,  my  friend, 
and  has  not  been  disturbed  by  the  assaults  made  upon  it 
by  a  host  of  little  critics.  But  Socialists  have  always 
known  that  the  laws  of  competitive  society  do  not  apply 
to  monopoly,  and  that  the  monopolist  has  an  increased 
power  to  exploit  and  oppress  the  worker.  That  is  one 
of  the  chief  reasons  why  we  demand  that  the  great  mo- 
nopolies be  transformed  into  common,  or  social,  prop- 
erty. 

The  fourth  principle  of  Socialist  economics  is  that 
the  wages  of  the  workers  represent  only  a  part  of  the 
value  of  their  labor  product.  The  remainder  is  divided 
among  the  non-producers  in  rent,  interest  and  profit. 
The  fortunes  of  the  rich  idlers  come  from  the  uffpaid-for 
labor  of  the  working  class.  This  is  the  great  theory  of 
"surplus  value,"  which  economists  are  so  fond  of  at- 
tacking. 

I  am  not  going  to  say  much  about  the  controversy 
concerning  this  theory,  Jonathan.  In  the  first  place,  you 
are  not  an  economist,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  in  the  dis- 
cussion which  is  wholly  irrelevant  and  unprofitable ;  and, 
in  the  second  place,  you  can  study  the  question  for  your- 
self. There  are  excellent  chapters  upon  the  subject  in 
Vail's  Principles  of  Scientific  Socialism,  Boudin's   The 


Io8  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

Theoretical  System  of  Karl  Marx,  and  Hyndman's  Eco- 
nomics of  Socialism.  You  will  also  find  a  simple  expo- 
sition of  the  subject  in  my  Socialism,  A  Summary  and 
Interpretation  of  Socialist  Principles.  It  will  also  be 
well  to  read  Wage-Labor  and  Cdpjtal,  a  five  cent  booklet 
by  Karl  Marx. 

But  you  do  not  need  to  be  an  economist  to  understand 
the  essential  principles  of  this  theory  of  surplus  value 
and  to  judge  of  its  truth.  I  have  never  flattered  you, 
Jonathan,  as  you  know ;  I  am  in  earnest  when  I  say  that 
I  am  content  to  leave  the  matter  to  your  own  judgment. 
I  attach  more  importance  to  your  decision,  based  upon  a 
plain,  matter-of-fact  observation  of  actual  life,  than  to 
the  opinion  of  many  a  very  learned  economist  cloistered 
away  from  the  real  world  in  a  musty  atmosphere  of 
books  and  mental  abstractions.  So  think  it  out  for  your- 
self, my  friend. 

You  know  that  when  a  man  takes  a  job  as  a  wage- 
worker,  he  enters  into  a  contract  to  give  something  in 
return  for  a  certain  amount  of  money.  What  is  it  that 
he  thus  sells?  Not  his  actual  labor,  but  his  power  and 
will  to  labor.  In  other  words,  he  undertakes  to  exert 
himself  in  a  manner  desired  by  the  capitalist  who  em- 
ploys him  for  so  much  an  hour,  so  much  a  day,  or  so 
much  a  week  as  the  case  may  be. 

Now,  how  are  the  wages  fixed  ?  What  determines  the 
amount  a  man  gets  for  his  labor?  There  arc  several 
factors.     Let  us  consider  them  one  by  one: 

First,  the  man  must  have  enough  to  keep  himself  alive 
and  able  to  work.  If  he  does  not  get  that  much  he  will 
die,  or  be  unfit  to  work.  Second,  in  order  that  the  race 
may  be  maintained,  and  that  there  may  be  a  consttnt 
supply  of  labor,  it  is  necessary  that  men  as  a  rule  should 
have  families.     So,  as  we  saw  in  a  quotation  from  Advm 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT         IO9 

Smith  in  an  earlier  letter,  the  wages  must,  on  an  av- 
erage, be  enough  to  keep,  not  only  the  man  himself  but 
those  dependent  upon  him.  These  are  the  bottom  re- 
quirements of  wages. 

Now,  the  tendency  is  for  wages  to  keep  somewhere 
near  this  bottom  level.  If  nothing  else  interfered  they 
would  always  tend  to  that  level.  First  of  all,  there  is  no 
scientific  organization  of  the  labor  force  of  the  world. 
Sometimes  the  demand  for  labor  in  a  particular  trade 
exceeds  the  supply,  and  then  wages  rise.  Sometimes  the 
supply  is  greater  than  the  demand,  and  then  wages  drop 
toward  the  bottom  level.  If  the  man  looking  for  a  job 
is  so  fortunate  as  to  know  that  there  are  many  places 
open  to  him,  he  will  not  accept  low  wages ;  on  the  other 
hand,  if  the  employer  knows  that  there  are  ten  men  for 
every  job,  he  will  not  pay  high  wages.  So,  as  with  the 
prices  of  things  in  general,  supply  and  demand  enter 
into  the  question  of  the  price  of  labor  in  any  given  time 
or  place. 

Then,  also,  by  combination  workingmen  can  sometimes 
raise  their  wages.  They  can  bring  about  a  sort  of 
monopoly-price  for  their  labor-power.  It  is  not  an  abso- 
lute monopoly-price,  however,  for  the  reason  that,  al- 
most invariably,  there  are  men  outside  of  the  unions, 
whose  competition  has  to  be  withstood.  Also,  the  means 
of  production  and  the  accumulated  surplus  belong  to 
the  capitalists  so  that  they  can  generally  starve  the 
workers  into  submission,  or  at  least  compromise,  in  any 
struggle  aiming  at  the  establishment  of  monopoly-prices 
for  labor-power. 

But  there  is  one  thing  the  workers  can  never  do,  ex- 
cept by  destroying  capitalism:  they  cannot  get  wages 
equal  to  the  full  value  of  their  product.  That  would 
destroy  the  capitalist  system,  which  is  based  upon  profit- 


no  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

making.  All  the  luxury  and  wealth  of  the  non-pro- 
ducers is  wrung  from  the  labor  of  the  producers.  You 
can  see  that  for  yourself,  Jonathan,  and  I  need  not  argue 
it  further. 

I  do  not  care  very  much  whether  you  call  the  part  of 
the  wealth  which  goes  to  the  non-producers  "  surplus 
value,"  or  whether  you  call  it  something  else.  The  namg 
is  not  of  great  importance  to  us.  We  care  only  for  the 
reality.  But  I  do  want  you  to  get  firm  hold  of  the  sim- 
ple fact  that  when  an  idler  gets  a  dollar  he  has  not 
earned,  some  worker  must  get  a  dollar  less  than  he  has 
earned. 

Don't  be  buncoed  by  the  word- jugglers  who  tell  you 
that  the  profits  of  the  capitalists  are  the  "  fruits  of 
abstinence,"  or  the  "  reward  of  managing  ability,"  some- 
times also  called  the  "  wages  of  superintendence." 

These  and  other  attempted  explanations  of  capitalists' 
profits  are  simply  old  wives'  fables,  Jonathan.  Let  us 
look  for  a  minute  at  the  first  of  these  absurd  attempts  to 
explain  away  the  fact  that  profit  is  only  another  name 
for  unpaid-fof  labor.  You  know  very  well  that  ab- 
stinence never  yet  produced  anything.  If  I  have  a  dollar 
in  my  pocket  and  I  say  to  myself,  "  I  will  not  spend  this 
dollar :  I  will  abstain  from  using  it,"  the  dollar  does  not 
increase  in  any  way.  It  remains  just  a  dollar  and  no 
more.  If  I  have  a  loaf  of  bread  or  a  bottle  of  wine  and 
■  say  to  myself,  "  I  will  not  use  this  bread,  or  this  wine, 
but  will  keep  it  in  the  cup-board,"  you  know  very  well 
that  I  shall  not  get  any  increase  as  a  result  of  my  ab- 
stinence. I  do  not  get  anything  more  than  I  actually 
save. 

Now,  I  am  perfectly  willing  that  any  man  shall  have 
all  that  he  can  save  out  of  his  own  earnings.  If  no  man 
had  more  there  would  be  no  need  of  talking  about  "  Icgis- 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT         III 

lation  to  limit  fortunes,"  no  need  of  protest  against 
"  swollen  fortunes." 

But  now  suppose,  friend  Jonathan,  that  while  I  have 
the  dollar,  representing  my  "  abstinence,"  in  my  pocket, 
a  man  who  has  not  a  dollar  comes  to  me  and  says,  "  I 
really  must  have  a  dollar  to  get  food  for  my  wife  and 
baby,  or  they  will  die.  Lend  me  a  dollar  until  next 
week  and  I  will  pay  you  back  two  dollars."  If  I 
lend  him  the  dollar  and  next  week  take  his  two  dollars, 
that  is  what  is  called  the  reward  of  my  abstinence.  But 
in  truth  it  is  something  quite  different.  It  is  usury. 
Just  because  I  happen  to  have  something  the  other  fel- 
low has  not  got,  and  which  he  must  have,  he  is  com- 
pelled to  pay  me  interest.  If  he  also  had  a  dollar  in  his 
pocket,  I  could  get  no  interest  from  him. 

It  would  be  just  the  same  if  I  had  not  abstained  from 
anything.  If,  for  example,  I  had  found  the  dollar  which 
some  other  careful  fellow  had  lost,  I  could  still  get  inter- 
est upon  it.  Or  if  I  had  inherited  money  from  my 
father,  it  might  happen  that,  so  far  from  being  abstemi- 
ous and  thrifty,  I  had  been  most  extravagant,  while  the 
fellow  who  came  to  borrow  had  been  very  thrifty  and 
abstemious,  but  still  unable  to  provide  for  his  family. 
Yet  I  should  make  him  pay  me  interest. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  friend,  the  rich  have  not 
abstained  from  anything.  They  have  not  accumulated 
riches  out  of  their  savings,  through  abstaining  from 
buying  things.  On  the  contrary,  they  have  bought  and 
enjoyed  the  costliest  things.  They  have  lived  in  fine 
houses,  worn  costly  clothing,  eaten  the  choicest  food, 
sent  their  sons  and  daughters  to  the  most  expensive 
schools  and  colleges. 

From  all  of  these  things  the  workers  have  abstained, 
Jonathan.     They  have  abstained  from  living  in  fine  houses 


112  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

and  lived  in  poor  houses ;  they  have  abstained  from 
wearing  costly  clothes  and  worn  the  cheapest  and  poor- 
est clothes ;  they  have  abstained  from  choice  food  and 
eaten  only  food  that  is  coarse  and  cheap ;  they  have  ab- 
stained from  sending  their  sons  and  daughters  to  ex- 
pensive schools  and  colleges  and  sent  them  only  to  the 
lower  grades  of  the  public  schools.  If  abstinence  were 
a  source  of  wealth,  the  working  people  of  every  country 
would  be  rich,  for  they  have  abstained  from  nearly 
everything  that  is  worth  while. 

There  is  one  thing  the  rich  have  abstained  from,  how- 
ever, which  the  poor  have  indulged  in  freely  —  and  that 
is  tvork.  I  never  heard  of  a  man  getting  rich  through 
his  own  labor. 

Even  the  inventor  does  not  get  rich  by  means  of  his 
own  labor.  To  begin  with,  there  is  no  invention  which 
is  purely  an  individual  undertaking.  I  was  talking  the 
other  day  with  one  of  the  world's  great  inventors  upon 
this  subject.  He  was  explaining  to  me  how  he  came 
to  invent  a  certain  machine  which  has  made  his  name 
famous.  He  explained  that  for  many  years  men  had 
been  facing  a  great  difficulty  and  other  inventors  had 
been  trying  to  devise  some  means  of  meeting  it.  He 
had,  therefore,  to  begin  with,  the  experience  of  thou- 
sands of  men  during  many  years  to  give  him  a  clear 
idea  of  what  was  required.  And  that  was  a  great  thing 
to  start  with,  Jonathan. 

Secondly,  he  had  the  experiments  of  all  the  numerous 
other  inventors  to  guide  him :  he  could  profit  by  their 
failures.  Not  only  did  he  know  what  to  avoid,  because 
that  great  fund  of  others'  experience,  but  he  also  got 
many  useful  ideas  from  the  work  of  some  of  the  men 
who  were  on  the  right  line  without  knowing  it.    "  I  could 


WHAT   SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT  1 13 

not  have  invented  it  if  it  were  not  for  the  men  who  went 
before  me,"  he  said. 

Another  point,  Jonathan:  In  the  wonderful  machine 
the  inventor  was  discussing  there  are  wheels  and  levers 
and  springs.  Somebody  had  to  invent  the  wheel,  the 
lever  and  the  spring  before  there  could  be  a  machine  at 
all.  Who  was  it,  I  wonder !  Do  you  know  who  made 
the  first  wheel,  or  the  first  lever?  Of  course  you  don't! 
Nobody  does.  These  things  were  invented  thousands 
of  years  ago,  when  the  race  still  lived  in  barbarism. 
Each  age  has  simply  extended  their  usefulness  and  effi- 
ciency. So  it  is  wrong  to  speak  of  any  invention  as  the 
work  of  one  man.  Into  every  great  invention  go  the 
experience  and  experiments  of  countless  others. 

So  much  for  that  side  of  the  question.  Now,  let  us 
look  at  another  side  of  the  question  which  is  sometimes 
lost  sight  of.  A  man  invents  a  machine:  as  I  have 
shown  you,  it  is  as  much  the  product  of  other  men's  brains 
as  of  his  own.  It  is  really  a  social  product.  He  gets  a 
patent  upon  the  machine  for  a  certain  number  of  years, 
and  that  patent  gives  him  the  right  to  say  to  the  world 
"  No  one  can  use  this  machine  unless  he  pays  me  a  roy- 
alty." He  does  not  use  the  machine  himself  and  keep 
what  he  can  make  in  competition  with  others'  means  of 
production.  If  no  one  chooses  to  use  his  machine,  then, 
no  matter  how  good  a  thing  it  may  be,  he  gets  nothing 
from  his  invention.  So  that  even  the  inventor  is  no  ex- 
ception to  my  statement  that  no  man  ever  gets  rich  by 
his  own  labor. 

The  inventor  is  not  the  real  inventor  of  the  machine: 
he  only  carries  on  the  work  which  others  began  thou- 
sands of  years  ago.  He  takes  the  results  of  other  peo- 
ple's   inventive   genius   and   adds   his   quota.    But   he 


114  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

claims  tne  whole.  And  when  he  has  done  his  work  and 
added  his  contribution  to  th,e  age-long  development  of 
mechanical  modes  of  production,  he  must  depend  again 
upon  society,  upon  the  labor  of  others. 

To  return  to  the  question  of  abstinence:  I  would  not 
attempt  to  deny  that  some  men  have  saved  part  of  their 
income  and  by  investing  it  secured  the  beginnings  of 
great  fortunes.  I  know  thai  is  so.  But  the  fortunes 
came  out  of  the  labor  of  other  people.  Somebody  had 
to  produce  the  wealth,  that  is  quite  evident.  And  if  the 
person  who  got  it  was  not  that  somebody,  the  producer, 
it  is  as  clear  as  noonday  that  the  producer  must  have 
produced  something  he  did  not  get. 

No,  my  friend,  the  notion  that  profits  are  the  reward 
of  abstinence  and  thrift  is  stupid  in  the  extreme.  The 
people  who  enjoy  the  profit-incomes  of  the  world,  are, 
with  few  exceptions,  people  who  have  not  been  either 
abstemious  or  thrifty. 

But  perhaps  you  will  say  that,  while  this  may  be  true 
of  the  people  who  to-day  are  getting  enormous  incomes 
from  rent,  interest  or  profit,  we  must  go  further  back; 
that  we  must  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  things  when 
their  fathers  or  their  grandfathers  began  by  investing 
their  savings. 

To  that  I  have  no  objection  whatever,  provided  only 
that  you  are  willing  to  go  back,  not  merely  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  individual  fortune,  but  to  the  beginning  of 
the  system.  If  your  grandfather,  or  great-grandfather, 
had  been  what  is  termed  a  thrifty  and  industrious  man, 
working  hard,  living  poor,  working  his  wife  and  little 
ones  in  one  long  grind,  all  in  order  to  save  money  to 
invest  in  business,  you  might  now  be  a  rich  man ;  that 
is,  supposing  you  were  heir  to  their  possessions. 

That  is  not  at  all  certain,  for  it  is  a  fact  that  most  of 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT  11$ 

the  men  who  have  hoarded  their  individual  savings  and 
then  invested  them  have  been  ruined  and  fooled.  In 
the  case  of  our  railroads,  for  example,  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  early  investors  of  savings  went  bankrupt. 
They  were  swallowed  up  by  the  bigger  fish,  Jonathan. 
But  assume  it  otherwise,  assume  that  the  grandfather 
of  some  rich  man  of  the  present  day  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  family  fortune  in  the  manner  described,  don't  you 
see  that  the  system  of  robbing  the  worker  of  his  product 
was  already  established;  that  you  must  go  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  system  f 

And  when  you  trace  capital  back  to  its  origin,  my 
friend,  you  will  always  come  to  war  or  robbery.  You 
can  trace  it  back  to  the  forcible  taking  of  the  land  away 
from  the  people.  When  the  machine  came,  bringing 
with  it  an  industrial  revolution,  it  was  by  the  wealthy 
and  the  ruthless  that  the  machine  was  owned,  not  by  the 
poor  toilers.  In  other  words,  my  friends,  there  was 
simply  a  continuance  of  the  old  rule  of  a  class  of  over- 
lords, under  another  name. 

If  the  abstinence  theory  is  foolish,  even  more  foolish 
is  the  notion  that  profits  are  the  reward  of  managing 
ability,  the  wages  of  superintendence.  Under  primitive 
capitalism  there   was   some  justification   for  this  view. 

It  was  impossible  to  deny  that  the  owner  of  a  factory 
did  manage  it,  that  he  was  the  superintendent,  entitled 
as  such  to  some  reward.  It  was  easy  enough  to  say  that 
he  got  a  disproportionate  share,  but  who  was  to  decide 
just  what  his  fair  share  would  be? 

But  when  capitalism  developed  and  became  impersonal 
that  idea  of  the  nature  of  profits  was  killed.  When 
companies  were  organized  they  employed  salaried  man- 
agers, whose  salaries  were  paid  before  profits  were  reck- 
oned at  all.    To-day  I  can  own  shares  in  China  and 


Il6  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

Australia  while  living  all  the  time  in  the  United  States. 
Even  though  I  have  never  been  to  those  countries,  nor 
seen  the  property  I  am  a  shareholder  in,  I  shall  get  my 
profits  just  the  same.  A  lunatic  may  own  shares  in  a 
thousand  companies  and,  though  he  is  confined  in  a  mad- 
house, his  shares  of  stock  will  still  bring  a  profit  to  his 
guardians  in  his  name. 

When  Mr.  Rockefeller  was  summoned  to  court  in 
Chicago  last  year,  he  stated  on  oath  that  he  could  not 
tell  anything  about  the  business  of  the  Satndard  Oil 
Company,  not  having  had  anything  to  do  with  the  busi- 
ness for  several  years  past.  But  he  gets  his  profits  just 
the  same,  showing  how  foolish  it  is  to  talk  of  profits  as 
being  the  reward  of  managing  ability  and  the  wages  of 
superintendence. 

Now,  Jonathan,  I  have  explained  to  you  pretty  fully 
what  Socialism  is  when  considered  as  a  philosophy  of 
social  evolution.  I  have  also  explained  to  you  what  So- 
cialism is  when  considered  as  a  system  of  economy.  I 
could  sum  up  both  very  briefly  by  saying  that  Socialism 
is  a  philosophy  of  social  evolution  which  teaches  that  the 
great  force  which  has  impelled  the  race  onward,  de- 
termining the  rate  and  direction  of  social  progress,  has 
come  from  man's  tools  and  the  mode  of  production  in 
general :  that  we  are  now  living  in  a  period  of  transition, 
from  capitalism  to  Socialism,  motived  by  the  economic 
forces  of  our  time.  Socialism  is  a  system  of  economics, 
also.  Its  substance  may  be  summed  up  in  a  sentence 
as  follows :  Labor  applied  to  natural  resources  is  the 
source  of  the  wealth  of  capitalistic  society,  but  the  great- 
est part  of  the  wealth  produced  goes  to  non-producers, 
the  producers  getting  only  a  part,  in  the  form  of  wages 
—  hence  the  paradox  of  wealthy  non-producers  and  pe- 
nurious producers. 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  117 

I  have  explained  to  you  also  that  Socialism  is  not  a 
scheme.  There  remains  still  to  be  explained,  however, 
another  aspect  of  Socialism,  of  more  immediate  interest 
and  importance  and  interest.  I  must  try  to  explain  So- 
cialism as  an  ideal,  as  a  forecast  of  the  future.  You 
want  to  know,  having  traced  the  evolution  of  society  to 
a  point  where  everything  seems  to  be  in  transition,  where 
a  change  seems  imminent,  just  what  the  nature  of  *hat 
change  will  be. 

I  must  leave  that  for  another  letter,  friend  Jonatha'i, 
for  this  is  over-long  already.  I  shall  not  try  to  paint  a 
picture  of  the  future  for  you,  to  tell  you  in  detail  what 
that  future  will  be  like.  I  do  not  know:  no  man  can 
know.  He  who  pretends  to  know  is  either  a  fool  or  a 
knave,  my  friend.  But  there  are  some  things  which,  I 
believe,  we  may  premise  with  reasonable  certainty 
These  things  I  want  to  discuss  in  my  next  letter.  Mean- 
time, there  are  lots  of  things  in  this  letter  to  think 
about. 

And  I  want  you  to  think,  'Jonathan  Edwards! 


IX 

WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS   AND   WHAT   IT   IS   NOT 

(Continued) 


And  the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard 
shall  lie  down  with  the  kid;  and  the  calf  and  the  young  lion  and 
the  fattling  together ;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them.  And 
the  cow  and  the  bear  shall  feed ;  their  young  ones  shall  lie  down 
together ;  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox.  And  the  suck- 
ling child  shall  play  on  the  hole  of  the  asp,  and  the  weaned 
child  shall  put  his  hand  on  the  basilisk's  den.  They  shall  not 
hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain:  for  the  earth  shall 
be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the 
sea. —  Isaiah. 

But  we  are  not  going  to  attain  Socialism  at  one  bound.  The 
transition  is  going  on  all  the  time,  and  the  important  thing  for 
us,  in  this  explanation,  is  not  to  paint  a  picture  of  the  future 
—  which  in  any  case  would  be  useless  labor  —  but  to  forecast 
a  practical  programme  for  the  intermediate  period,  to  formulate 
and  justify  measures  that  shall  be  applicable  at  once,  and  that 
will  serve  as  aids  to  the  new  Socialist  birth. —  W.  Liehknecht. 

At  the  head  of  this  letter  I  have  copied  two  passages 
to  which  I  want  you  to  give  particular  attention,  Jona- 
than. The  first  consists  of  a  part  of  a  very  beautiful  word- 
picture,  in  which  the  splendid  old  Hebrew  prophet  de- 
scribed his  vision  of  a  perfect  social  state.  In  his  Utopia 
it  would  no  longer  be  true  to  speak  of  Nature  as  being 
red  of  tooth  and  claw.  Even  the  lion  would  eat  straw 
like  the  ox,  so  that  there  might  not  be  suffering  caused 

ii8 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS   AND  WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  ITQ 

by  one  animal  preying  upon  another.  Whenever  I  read 
that  chapter,  Jonathan,  I  sit  watching  the  smoke-wreaths 
curl  out  of  my  pipe  and  float  away,  and  they  seem  to 
bear  me  with  them  to  a  land  of  seductive  beauty.  I 
should  like  to  live  in  a  land  where  there  was  never  a  cry 
of  pain,  where  never  drop  of  blood  stained  the  ground. 

There  have  been  lots  of  Utopias  besides  that  of  the 
old  Hebrew  prophet.  Plato,  the  great  philosopher, 
wrote  The  Republic  to  give  form  to  his  dream  of  an  ideal 
society.  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  great  English  states- 
man and  martyr,  outlined  his  ideal  of  social  relations  in 
a  book  called  Utopia.  Mr.  Bellamy,  in  our  own  day, 
has  given  us  his  picture  of  social  perfection  in  Looking 
Backzvard.  There  have  been  many  others  who,  not  con- 
tent with  writing  down  their  ideas  of  what  society 
ought  to  be  like,  have  tried  to  establish  ideal  conditions. 
They  have  established  colonies,  communities,  sects  and 
brotherhoods,  all  in  the  earnest  hope  of  being  able  to  at- 
tain the  perfect  social  state. 

The  greatest  of  these  experimental  Utopians,  Robert 
Owen,  tried  to  carry  out  his  ideas  in  this  country.  It 
would  be  well  worth  your  while  to  read  the  account  of 
his  life  and  work  in  George  Browning  Lockwood's  book, 
The  Nezv  Harmony  Communities.  Owen  tried  to  get 
Congress  to  adopt  his  plans  for  social  regeneration.  He 
addressed  the  members  of  both  houses,  taking  with  him 
models,  plans,  diagrams  and  statistics,  showing  exactly 
how  things  would  be,  according  to  his  idea,  in  the  ideal 
world.  In  Europe  he  went  round  to  all  the  reigning 
sovereigns  begging  them  to  adopt  his  plans. 

He  wanted  common  ownership  of  everything  with 
equal  distribution ;  money  would  be  abolished ;  the  mar- 
riage system  would  be  done  away  with  and  "  free  love  " 
established;  children  would  belong  to  and  be  reared  by 


120  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

the  community.  Our  concern  with  him  at  this  point  is 
that  he  called  himself  a  Socialist  and  was,  I  believe,  the 
first  to  use  that  word. 

But  the  Socialists  of  to-day  have  nothing  in  common 
with  such  Utopian  ideas  as  those  I  have  described.  We 
all  recognize  that  Robert  Owen  was  a  beautiful  spirit, 
one  of  the  world's  greatest  humanitarians.  He  was,  like 
the  prophet  Isaiah,  a  dreamer,  a  visionary.  He  had  no 
idea  of  the  philosophy  of  social  evolution  upon  which 
modern  Socialism  rests ;  no  idea  of  its  system  of  eco- 
nomics. He  saw  the  evils  of  private  ownership  and 
competition  in  the  fiercest  period  of  competitive  indus- 
try, and  wanted  to  replace  them  with  co-operation  and 
public  ownership.  But  his  point  of  view  was  that  he 
had  been  inspired  with  a  great  idea,  thanks  to  which  he 
could  save  the  world  from  all  its  misery.  He  did  not 
realize  that  social  changes  are  produced  by  slow  evolu- 
tion. 

One  of  the  principal  reasons  why  I  have  dwelt  at 
this  length  upon  Owen  is  that  he  is  a  splendid  represen- 
tative of  the  great  Utopia  builders.  The  fact  that  he 
was  probably  the  first  man  to  use  the  word  Socialism 
adds  an  element  of  interest  to  his  personality  also.  I 
wanted  to  put  Utopian  Socialism  before  you  so  clearly 
that  you  would  be  able  to  contrast  it  at  once  with  mod- 
ern, scientific  Socialism  —  the  Socialism  of  Marx  and 
Engels,  upon  which  the  great  Socialist  parties  of  the 
world  are  based ;  the  Socialism  that  is  alive  in  the  world 
to-day.  They  are  as  opposite  as  the  poles.  It  is  im- 
portant that  you  should  grasp  this  fact  very  clearly,  for 
many  of  the  criticisms  of  Socialism  made  to-day  apply 
only  to  the  old  Utopian  ideals  and  do  not  touch  modern 
Socialism  at  all.  In  the  letter  you  wrote  me  at  the  be- 
ginning  of   this    discussion   there   are   many   questions 


WHAT   SOCIALISM    IS   AND  WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  121 

which  you  could  not  have  asked  had  you  not  conceived 
of  SociaHsm  as  a  scheme  to  be  adopted.     - 

People  are  constantly  attacking  Socialism  upon  these 
false  grounds.  They  remind  me  of  a  story  I  heard  in 
Wales  many  years  ago.  In  one  of  the  mountain  dis- 
tricts a  miner  returned  from  his  work  one  afternoon  and 
found  that  his  wife  had  bought  a  picture  of  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Jesus  and  hung  it  against  the  wall.  He  had 
never  heard  of  Jesus,  so  the  story  goes,  and  his  wife 
had  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the  picture.  She  told  the 
story  in  her  simple  way,  laying  much  stress  upon  the 
fact  that  "  the  wicked  Jews  "  had  killed  Jesus.  But  she 
forgot  to  say  that  it  all  happened  about  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

Now,  it  happened  not  long  after  that  the  miner  saw 
a  Jew  peddler  come  to  the  door  of  his  cottage.  The 
thought  of  the  awful  suffering  of  Jesus  and  his  own 
Welsh  hatred  of  oppression  sufficed  to  fill  him  with  re- 
sentment toward  the  poor  peddler.  He  at  once  began  to 
beat  the  unfortunate  fellow  in  a  terribly  savage  manner. 
When  the  peddler,  between  gasps,  demanded  to  know 
why  he  had  been  so  ill-treated,  the  miner  dragged  him 
into  his  kitchen  and  pointed  to  the  picture  of  the  cruci- 
fixion. "  See  what  you  did  to  that  poor  man,  our 
Lord !  "  he  thundered.  To  which  the  Jew  very  naturally 
responded :  "  But,  my  friend,  that  was  not  me.  That 
was  two  thousand  years  ago !  "  The  reply  seemed  to 
daze  the  miner  for  a  moment.  Then  he  said :  "  Two 
thousand  years !  Two  thousand  years !  Why,  I  only  heard 
of  it  last  week !  " 

It  is  just  as  silly  to  attack  the  Socialism  of  to-day  for 
the  ideas  held  by  the  earlier  Utopian  Socialists  as  beating 
that  poor  Jew  peddler  was. 

Now  then,  friend  Jonathan,  turn  back  and  read  the 


122  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

second  of  the  passages  I  have  placed  at  the  head  of  this 
letter.  It  is  from  the  writings  of  one  of  the  greatest  of 
modern  Socialists,  the  man  who  was  the  great  political 
leader  of  the  Socialist  movement  in  Germany,  Wilhelm 
Liebknecht. 

You  will  notice  that  he  says  the  transition  to  Socialism 
is  going  on  all  the  time ;  that  we  are  not  to  attain  Social- 
ism at  one  bound;  that  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to  paint 
pictures  of  the  future ;  that  we  can  forecast  an  immediate 
programme  and  aid  the  Socialist  birth.  These  state- 
ments are  quite  in  harmony  with  the  outline  of  the  So- 
cialist philosophy  of  the  evolution  of  society  contained  in 
my  last  letter. 

So,  if  you  ask  me  to  tell  you  just  what  the  world  will 
be  like  when  all  people  call  themselves  Socialists  except 
a  few  reformers  and  "  fanatics,"  earnest  pioneers  of  fur- 
ther changes,  I  must  answer  you  that  I  do  not  know. 
How  they  will  dress,  what  sort  of  pictures  artists  will 
paint,  what  sort  of  poems  poets  will  write,  or  what  sort 
of  novels  men  and  women  will  read,  I  do  not  know. 
What  the  income  of  each  family  will  be  I  cannot  tell 
you,  any  more  than  I  can  tell  you  whether  there  will  be 
any  intercommunication  between  the  inhabitants  of  this 
planet  and  of  Mars;  whether  there  will  be  an  ambassa- 
dor from  Mars  at  the  national  capital. 

I  do  not  expect  that  the  lion  will  eat  straw  like  the  ox ; 
I  do  not  expect  that  people  will  be  perfect.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  men  and  women  will  have  become  so  an- 
gelic that  there  will  never  be  any  crime,  suffering,  anger, 
pain  or  sorrow;  I  do  not  expect  disease  to  be  forever 
banished  from  life  in  the  Socialist  regime.  Still  less  do 
I  expect  that  mechanical  genius  will  have  been  so  per- 
fected that  human  labor  will  be  no  longer  necessary ; 
that  perpetual  motion  will  have  been  harnessed  to  great 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS   AND   WHAT    IT    IS   NOT  I23 

indestructible  machines  and  work  become  a  thing  of  the 
past.  That  dream  of  the  German  dreamer,  Etzler,  will 
never  be  realized,  I  hope. 

I  suppose  that,  under  Socialism,  there  will  be  some 
men  and  women  far  wiser  than  others.  There  may  be 
a  few  fools  left!  I  suppose  that  some  will  be  far  juster 
and  kinder  than  others.  There  may  be  some  selfish 
brutes  left  with  a  good  deal  of  hoggishness  in  their  na- 
ture !  I  suppose  that  some  will  have  to  make  great  mis- 
takes and  endure  the  tragedies  which  men  and  women 
have  endured  through  all  the  ages.  The  love  of  some 
men  will  die  out,  breaking  the  hearts  of  some  women,  I 
suppose,  and  there  will  be  women  whose  love  will  bring 
them  to  ruin  and  death.  I  should  not  like  to  think  of 
jails  and  brothels  existing  under  Socialism,  Jonathan, 
but  for  all  I  know  they  may  exist.  Whether  there  will 
be  churches  and  paid  ministers  under  Socialism,  I  do  not 
know.     I  do  not  pretend  to  know. 

I  suppose  that,  under  Socialism,  there  will  be  some 
people  who  will  be  dissatisfied.  I  hope  so!  Men  and 
women  will  want  to  move  to  a  higher  plane  of  life,  I 
hope.  What  they  will  call  that  plane  I  do  not  know ; 
what  it  will  be  like  I  do  not  know.  I  suppose  they  will 
be  opposed  and  persecuted ;  that  they  will  be  mocked  and 
derided,  called  "  fanatics  "  and  "  dreamers  "  and  lots  of 
other  ugly  and  unpleasant  names.  Lots  of  people  will 
want  to  stay  just  as  they  are,  and  violently  oppose  the 
men  who  say,  "  Let  us  move  on."  But  I  don't  believe 
that  any  sane  person  will  want  to  go  back  to  the  old  con- 
ditions —  back  to  our  conditions  of  to-day. 

You  see,  I  have  killed  lots  of  your  objections  already, 
my  friend ! 

Now  let  me  tell  you  briefly  what  Socialists  want,  and 
what  they  believe  will  take  place  —  must  take  place.     In 


124  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

the  first  place,  there  must  be  political  changes  to  make 
complete  our  political  democracy.  You  may  be  sur- 
prised at  this,  Jonathan.  Perhaps  you  are  accustomed 
to  think  of  our  political  system  as  being  the  perfect  ex- 
pression of  political  democracy.     Let  us  see. 

Compared  with  some  other  countries,  like  Russia, 
Germany  and  Spain,  for  example,  this  is  a  free  country, 
politically;  a  model  of  democracy.  We  have  adult  suf- 
frage—  for  the  men!  In  only  a  few  states  are  our 
mothers,  wives,  sisters  and  daughters  allowed  to  vote. 
In  most  of  the  states  the  best  women,  and  the  most  in- 
telligent, are  placed  on  the  political  level  of  the  criminal 
and  the  maniac.  They  must  obey  the  laws,  their  inter- 
ests in  the  well-being  and  good  government  of  the  nation 
are  as  vital  as  those  of  our  sex.  But  they  are  denied 
representation  in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  denied  a 
voice  in  the  afifairs  of  the  nation.  They  are  not  citizens. 
We  have  a  class  below  that  of  the  citizens  in  this  country, 
a  class  based  upon  sex  distinctions. 

To  make  our  political  system  thoroughly  representa- 
tive and  democratic,  we  must  extend  political  power  to 
the  women  of  the  nation.  Further  than  that,  we  must 
bring  all  the  means  of  government  more  directly  under 
the  people's  will. 

In  our  industrial  system  we  must  bring  the  great  trusts 
under  the  rule  of  the  people.  They  must  be  owned  and 
controlled  by  all  for  all.  I  say  that  we  "  must  "  do  this, 
because  there  is  no  other  way  by  which  the  present  evils 
may  be  remedied.  Everybody  who  is  not  blinded  to  the 
real  situation  by  vested  interest  must  recognize  that  the 
present  conditions  are  intolerable  —  and  becoming  worse 
and  more  intolerable  every  day.  A  handful  of  men  have 
the  nation's  destiny  in  their  greedy  fingers  and  they  gam- 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT  I25 

ble  with  it  for  their  own  profit.  Something  must  be 
done. 

But  what?  We  cannot  go  back  if  we  would.  I  have 
shown  you  pretty  clearly,  I  think,  that  if  it  were  possi- 
ble to  undo  the  chain  of  evolution  and  to  go  back  to 
primitive  capitalism,  with  its  competitive  spirit,  the  de- 
velopment to  monopoly  would  begin  all  over  again.  It 
is  an  inexorable  law  that  competition  breeds  monopoly. 
So  we  cannot  go  back. 

What,  then,  is  the  outlook,  the  forward  view  ?  So  far 
as  I  know,  Jonathan,  there  are  only  two  propositions  for 
meeting  the  evil  conditions  of  monopoly,  other  than  the 
perfectly  silly  one  of  "  going  back  to  competition." 
They  are  (i)  Regulation  of  the  trusts;  (2)  Socialization 
of  the  trusts. 

Now,  the  first  means  that  we  should  leave  these  great 
monopolies  in  the  hands  of  their  present  owners  and 
directors,  but  enact  various  laws  curtailing  their  powers 
to  exploit  the  people.  Laws  are  to  be  passed  limiting  the 
capital  they  may  employ,  the  amount  of  profits  they  may 
make,  and  so  on.  But  nobody  explains  how  they  ex- 
pect to  get  the  laws  obeyed.  There  are  plenty  of  laws 
now  aiming  at  regulation  of  the  trusts,  but  they  are 
quite  futile  and  inoperative.  First  we  spend  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  money  and  energy  getting  laws  passed ; 
then  we  spend  much  more  money  and  energy  trying  to 
get  them  enforced  —  and  fail  after  all ! 

I  submit  to  your  good  judgment,  Jonathan,  that  so 
long  as  we  have  a  relatively  small  class  in  the  nation 
owning  these  great  monopolies  through  corporations 
there  can  be  no  peace.  It  will  be  to  the  interest  of  the 
corporations  to  look  after  their  profits,  to  prevent  the  en- 
actment of  legislation  aimed   to   restrict  them   and  to 


126  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

evade  the  law  as  much  as  possible.  They  will  naturally 
use  their  influence  to  secure  laws  favorable  to  them- 
selves, with  the  inevitable  result  of  corruption  in  the  leg- 
islative branches  of  the  government.  Legislators  will 
be  bought  like  mackerel  in  the  market,  as  Mr.  Lawson 
so  bluntly  expresses  it.  Efforts  will  be  made  to  corrupt 
the  judiciary  also  and  the  power  of  the  entire  capitalist 
class  will  be  directed  to  the  capture  of  our  whole  system 
of  government.  Even  more  than  to-day,  we  will  have 
the  government  of  the  people  by  a  privileged  part  of  the 
people  in  the  interests  of  the  privileged  part. 

You  must  not  forget,  my  friend,  that  the  corruption 
of  the  government  about  which  we  hear  so  much  from 
time  to  time  is  always  in  the  interests  of  private  capital- 
ism. If  there  is  graft  in  some  public  department,  there 
is  an  outcry  that  graft  and  public  business  go  together. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  graft  is  in  the  interests  of  private 
capitalism. 

When  legislators  sell  their  votes  it  is  never  for  public 
enterprises.  I  have  never  heard  of  a  city  which  was 
seeking  the  power  to  establish  any  public  service  raising 
a  "  yellow  dog  fund "  with  which  to  bribe  legislators. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  never  yet  heard  of  a  private  com- 
pany seeking  a  franchise  without  doing  so  more  or  less 
openly.  Regulation  of  the  trusts  will  still  leave  the  few 
masters  of  the  many,  and  corruption  still  gnawing  at 
the  vitals  of  the  nation. 

We  must  ozvn  the  trusts,  Jonathan,  and  transform 
the  monopolies  by  which  the  few  exploit  and  oppress 
the  many  into  social  monopolies  for  the  good  of  all. 
Sooner  or  later,  either  by  violent  or  peaceful  means,  this 
will  be  done.  It  is  for  the  working-class  to  say  whether 
it  shall  be  sooner  or  later,  whether  it  shall  be  accom- 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT  IT   IS  NOT         I27 

plished  through  the  strife  and  bitterness  of  war  or  by 
the  peaceful  methods  of  political  conquest. 

We  have  seen  that  the  root  of  the  evil  in  modern  so- 
ciety is  the  profit  motive.  Socialism  means  the  produc- 
tion of  things  for  use  instead  of  for  profit.  Not  at  one 
stroke,  perhaps,  but  patiently,  wisely  and  surely,  all  the 
things  upon  which  people  in  common  depend  will  be 
made  common  property. 

Take  notice  of  that  last  paragraph,  Jonathan.  I  don't 
say  that  all  property  must  be  owned  in  common,  but 
only  the  things  upon  which  people  in  common  depend; 
the  things  which  all  must  use  if  they  are  to  live  as  they 
ought,  and  as  they  have  a  right  to  live.  We  have  a 
splendid  illustration  of  social  property  in  our  public 
streets.  These  are  necessary  to  all.  It  would  be  intol- 
erable if  one  man  should  own  the  streets  of  a  city  and 
charge  all  other  citizens  for  the  use  of  them.  So  streets 
are  built  out  of  the  common  funds,  maintained  out  of  the 
common  funds,  freely  used  by  all  in  common,  and  the 
poorest  man  has  as  much  right  to  use  them  as  the  rich- 
est man.  In  the  nutshell  this  states  the  argument  of 
Socialism. 

People  sometimes  ask  how  it  would  be  possible  for  the 
government  under  Socialism  to  decide  which  children 
should  be  educated  to  be  writers,  musicians  and  artists 
and  which  to  be  street  cleaners  and  laborers ;  how  it 
would  be  possible  to  have  a  government  own  everything, 
deciding  what  people  should  wear,  what  food  should  be 
produced,  and  so  on. 

The  answer  to  all  such  questions  is  that  Socialism 
would  not  need  to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  There 
would  be  no  need  for  the  government  to  attempt  such  an 
impossible  task.  When  people  raise  such  questions  they 
are  thinking  of   the   old   and   dead   utopianism,  of  the 


128  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

schemes  which  once  went  under  the  name  of  SociaUsm. 
But  modern  SociaHsm  is  a  principle,  not  a  scheme.  The 
Socialist  movement  of  to-day  is  not  interested  in  carry- 
ing out  a  great  design,  but  in  seeing  society  get  rid  of 
its  drones  and  making  it  impossible  for  one  class  to  ex- 
ploit another  class. 

Under  Socialism,  then,  it  would  not  be  at  all  neces- 
sary for  the  government  to  own  everything;  for  private 
property  to  be  destroyed.  For  instance,  the  State  could 
have  no  possible  interest  in  denying  the  right  of  a  man 
to  own  his  home  and  to  make  that  home  as  beauti- 
ful as  he  pleased.  It  is  perfectly  absurd  to  suppose  that 
it  would  be  necessary  to  "  take  away  the  poor  man's  cot- 
tage," about  which  some  opponents  of  Socialism  shriek. 
It  would  not  be  necessary  to  take  away  anybody's  home. 

On  the  contrary,  Socialism  would  most  likely  enable 
all  who  so  desired  to  own  their  own  homes.  At  present 
only  thirty-one  per  cent,  of  the  families  of  America  live 
in  homes  which  they  own  outright.  More  than  half  of 
the  people  live  in  rented  homes.  They  are  obliged  to 
give  up  practically  a  fourth  part  of  their  total  income  for 
mere  shelter. 

Socialism  would  not  prevent  a  man  from  owning  a 
horse  and  wagon,  since  it  would  be  possible  for  him  to 
use  that  horse  and  wagon  without  compelling  the  citi- 
zens to  pay  tribute  to  him.  On  the  other  hand,  private 
ownership  of  a  railway  would  be  impossible,  because 
railways  could  not  be  indefinitely  and  easily  multiplied, 
and  the  owners  of  such  a  railway  would  necessarily  have 
to  run  it  for  profit. 

Under  Socialism  such  public  services  as  the  transporta- 
tion and  delivery  of  parcels  would  be  in  the  hands  of 
the  people,  and  not  in  the  hands  of  monopolists  as  at 
present.     The  aim  would  be  to  serve  the  people  to  the 


WHAT   SOCIALISM    IS  AND   WHAT   IT    IS   NOT  I29 

best  possible  advantage,  and  not  to  make  profit  for  the 
few.  But  if  any  citizen  objected  and  wanted  to  carry 
his  own  parcel  from  New  York  to  Boston,  for  example, 
it  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  an  instant  that  the  State 
would  try  to  prevent  him. 

Under  Socialism  the  great  factories  would  belong  to 
the  people ;  the  trusts  would  be  socialized.  But  this 
would  not  stop  a  man  from  working  for  himself  in  a 
small  workshop  if  he  wanted  to ;  it  would  not  prevent  a 
number  of  workers  from  forming  a  co-operative  work- 
shop and  sharing  the  products  of  their  labor.  By  reason 
of  the  fact  that  the  great  productive  and  distributive 
agencies  which  are  entirely  social  were  socially  owned  and 
controlled  —  railways,  mines,  telephones,  telegraphs,  ex- 
press service,  and  the  great  factories  of  various  kinds  — 
the  Socialist  State  would  be  able  to  set  the  standards  of 
wages  and  industrial  conditions  for  all  the  rest  remain- 
ing in  private  hands. 

Let  me  explain  what  I  mean,  Jonathan:  Under  So- 
cialism, let  us  suppose,  the  State  undertakes  the  produc- 
tion of  shoes  by  socializing  the  shoe  trust.  It  takes  over 
the  great  factories  and  runs  them.  Its  object  is  not  to 
make  shoes  for  profit  however,  but  for  use.  To  make 
shoes  as  good  as  possible,  as  cheaply  as  good  shoes  can 
be  made,  and  to  see  that  the  people  making  the  shoes 
get  the  best  possible  conditions  of  labor  and  the  high- 
est possible  wages  —  as  near  as  possible  to  the  net  value 
of  their  product,  that  is. 

Some  people,  however,  object  to  wearing  factory-made 
shoes ;  they  want  shoes  of  a  special  kind,  to  suit  their  in- 
dividual fancy.  There  are  also,  we  will  suppose,  some 
shoemakers  who  do  not  like  to  work  in  the  State  fac- 
tories, preferring  to  make  shoes  by  hand  to  suit  indi- 
vidual tastes.     Now,  if  the  people  who  want  the  hand- 


130  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

made  shoes  are  willing  to  pay  the  shoemakers  as  much  as 
they  could  earn  in  the  socialized  factories  no  reasonable 
objection  could  be  urged  against  it.  If  they  would  not 
pay  that  amount,  or  near  it,  the  shoemakers,  it  is  rea- 
sonable to  suppose,  would  not  want  to  work  for  them. 
It  would  adjust  itself. 

Under  Socialism  the  land  would  belong  to  the  people. 
By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  the  private  use  of  land  would 
be  forbidden,  because  that  would  be  impossible.  There 
would  be  no  object  in  taking  away  the  small  farms  from 
their  owners.  On  the  contrary,  the  number  of  such 
farms  might  be  greatly  increased.  There  are  many  peo- 
ple to-day  who  would  like  to  have  small  farms  if  they 
could  only  get  a  fair  chance,  if  the  railroads  and  trusts 
of  one  kind  and  another  were  not  always  sucking  all 
the  juice  from  the  orange.  Socialism  would  make  it 
possible  for  the  farmer  to  get  what  he  could  produce, 
without  having  to  divide  up  with  the  railroad  companies, 
the  owners  of  grain  elevators,  money-lenders,  and  a  host 
of  other  parasites. 

I  have  no  doubt,  Jonathan,  that  under  Socialism  there 
would  be  many  privately-worked  farms.  Nor  have  I  any 
doubt  whatever  that  the  farmers  would  be  much  better 
off  than  under  existing  conditions.  For  to-day  the  far- 
mer is  not  the  happy,  independent  man  he  is  sometimes 
supposed  to  be.  Very  often  his  lot  is  worse  than  that  of 
the  city  wage-earner.  At  any  rate,  the  money  return  for 
his  labor  is  often  less.  You  know  that  a  great  many 
farmers  do  not  own  their  farms :  they  are  mortgaged  and 
the  farmer  has  to  pay  an  average  interest  of  six  per  cent, 
upon  the  mortgage. 

Now,  let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  such  a  farmer's  con- 
ditions,  as  shown  by  the  census  statistics.  According  to 
the   census   of    1900,   there   were   in   the  United   States 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT    IT    IS   NOT         I3I 

5,737,372  farms,  each  averaging  about  146  acres.  The 
total  value  of  farm  products  in  1899  was  $4,717,069,973. 
Now  then,  if  we  divide  the  value  of  the  products  by  the 
number  of  farms,  we  can  get  the  average  annual  product 
of  each  farm  —  about  $770. 

Out  of  that  $770  the  farmer  has  to  pay  a  hired  laborer 
for  at  least  six  months  in  the  year,  let  us  say.  At  twen- 
ty-five dollars  a  month,  with  an  added  eight  dollars  a 
month  for  his  board,  this  costs  the  farmer  $198,  so  that 
his  income  now  stands  at  $572.  Next,  he  must  pay  in- 
terest upon  his  mortgage  at  six  per  cent,  per  annum. 
Now,  the  average  value  of  the  farms  in  1899  was  $3,562 
and  six  per  cent,  on  that  amount  would  be  about  $213. 
Substract  that  sum  from  the  $572  which  the  farmer  has 
after  paying  his  hired  man  and  you  have  left  about  $356. 
But  as  the  farms  are  not  mortgaged  to  their  full  value, 
suppose  we  reduce  the  interest  one  half  —  the  farmer's 
income  remains  now  $464. 

Now,  as  a  general  thing,  the  farmer  and  his  wife 
have  to  work  equally  hard,  and  they  must  work  every 
day  in  the  year.  The  hired  laborer  gets  $150  and  his 
board  for  six  months,  at  the  rate  of  $300  and  board  per 
year.  The  farmer  and  his  wife  get  only  $232  a  year 
each  and  part  of  their  board,  for  what  is  not  produced 
on  the  farm  they  must  buy. 

Under  Socialism  the  farmer  could  own  his  own  farm 
to  all  intents  and  purposes.  While  the  final  title  might 
be  vested  in  the  government,  the  farmer  would  have  a 
title  to  the  use  of  the  farm  which  no  one  could  dispute 
or  take  from  him.  If  he  had  to  borrow  money  he  would 
do  it  from  the  government  and  would  not  be  charged 
extortionate  rates  of  interest  as  he  is  now.  He  would 
not  have  to  pay  railroad  companies'  profits,  since  the 
railways  being  owned  by  all   for  all   and  not   run   for 


132  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

profit,  would  be  operated  upon  a  basis  of  the  cost  of 
service.  The  farmer  would  not  be  exploited  by  the 
packers  and  middlemen,  these  functions  being  assumed 
by  the  people  through  their  government,  upon  the  same 
basis  of  service  to  all,  things  being  done  for  the  use  and 
welfare  of  all  instead  of  for  the  profit  of  the  few.  Un- 
der Socialism,  moreover,  the  farmer  could  get  his  ma- 
chinery from  the  government  factories  at  a  price  which 
included  no  profits  for  idle  shareholders. 

I  am  told,  Jonathan,  that  at  the  present  time  it  costs 
about  $24  to  make  a  reaper  which  the  farmer  must  pay 
$120  for.  It  costs  $40  to  sell  the  machine  which  was 
made  for  $24,  the  expense  being  incurred  by  wasteful 
and  useless  advertising,  salesmen's  commissions,  travelling 
expenses,  and  so  on.  The  other  $54  which  the  farmer 
must  pay  goes  to  the  idlers  in  the  form  of  rent,  interest 
and  profit. 

Socialism,  then,  could  very  well  leave  the  farmer  in 
full  possession  of  his  farm  and  improve  his  position  by 
making  it  possible  for  him  to  get  the  full  value  of  his 
labor-products  without  having  to  divide  up  with  a  host 
of  idlers  and  non-producers.  Socialism  would  not  deny 
any  man  the  use  of  the  land,  but  it  would  take  away  the 
right  of  non-users  to  reap  the  fruits  of  the  toil  of  users. 
It  would  deny  the  right  of  the  Astor  family  to  levy  a  tax 
upon  the  people  of  New  York,  amounting  to  millions  of 
dollars  annually,  for  the  privilege  of  living  there.  The 
Astors  have  such  a  vast  business  collecting  this  tax  that 
they  have  to  employ  an  agent  whose  salary  is  equal  to 
that  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  a  large 
army  of  employees. 

Socialism  would  deny  the  right  of  the  English  Duke 
of  Rutland  and  Lord  Beresford  to  hold  millions  of  acres 
of  land  in  Texas,  and  to  levy  a  tax  upon  Americans  for 


WHAT  SOCIALISM   IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT  1 33 

its  use.  It  would  deny  the  right  of  the  British  Land 
Company  to  tax  Kansans  for  the  use  of  the  300,000 
acres  owned  by  the  company;  the  right  of  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland  and  Sir  Edward  Reid  to  tax  Americans  for 
the  use  of  the  millions  of  acres  they  own  in  Florida ;  of 
Lady  Gordon  and  the  Marquis  of  Dalhousie  to  any  right 
to  tax  people  in  Mississippi.  The  idea  that  a  few  people 
can  own  the  land  upon  which  all  people  must  live  in  any 
country  is  a  relic  of  slavery,  friend  Jonathan. 

So  you  see,  my  friend,  Socialism  does  not  mean  that 
everything  is  to  be  divided  up  equally  among  the  people 
every  little  while.  That  is  either  a  fool's  notion  or  the 
wilful  misrepresentation  of  a  liar.  Socialism  does  not 
mean  that  there  is  to  be  a  great  bureaucratic  govern- 
ment owning  everything  and  controlling  everybody.  It 
does  not  mean  doing  away  with  private  initiative  and 
making  of  humanity  a  great  herd,  everybody  wearing 
the  same  kind  of  clothes,  eating  the  same  kind  and  quan- 
tities of  food,  and  having  no  personal  liberties.  It  sim- 
ply means  that  all  men  and  women  should  have  equal 
opportunities ;  to  make  it  impossible  for  one  man  to  ex- 
ploit another,  except  at  that  other's  free  will.  It  does 
not  mean  doing  away  with  individual  liberty  and  reduc- 
ing all  to  a  dead  level.  That  is  what  is  at  present  hap- 
pening to  the  great  majority  of  people,  and  Socialism 
comes  to  unbind  the  soul  of  man  —  to  make  mankind 
free. 

I  think,  Jonathan,  that  you  ought  to  have  a  fairly  clear 
notion  now  of  what  Socialism  is  and  what  it  is  not.  You 
ought  to  be  able  now  to  distinguish  between  the  social 
properties  which  Socialism  would  establish  and  the  pri- 
vate properties  it  could  have  no  object  in  taking  away, 
which  it  would  rather  foster  and  protect.  I  have  tried 
simply  to  illustrate  the  principle  for  you,  so  that  you 


134  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

can  think  the  matter  out  for  yourself.  It  will  be  a  very 
good  thing  for  you  to  commit  this  rule  to  memory. — 

Under  Socialism,  the  State  zvonld  ozvn  and  control 
only  those  things  ivhich  could  not  he  owned  and  con- 
trolled by  individuals  without  giving  them  an  undue  ad- 
vantage over  the  community,  by  enabling  them  to  extract 
profits  from  the  labor  of  others. 

But  be  sure  that  you  do  not  make  the  common  mistake 
of  confusing  government  ownership  with  Socialism, 
friend  Jonathan,  as  so  many  people  are  in  the  habit  of 
doing.  In  Prussia  the  government  owns  the  railways. 
But  the  government  does  not  represent  the  interests  of 
all  the  people.  It  is  the  government  of  a  nation  by  a 
class.  That  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  socialization 
of  the  railways,  as  you  will  see.  In  Russia  the  govern- 
ment owns  some  of  the  railways  and  has  a  monopoly  of 
the  liquor  traffic.  But  these  things  are  not  democratic- 
ally owned  and  managed  in  the  common  interest.  Rus- 
sia is  an  autocracy.  Everything  is  run  for  the  benefit 
of  the  governing  class,  the  Czar  and  a  host  of  bureau- 
crats. That  is  not  Socialism.  In  this  country  we  have 
a  nearer  approach  to  democracy  in  our  government,  and 
our  post-office  system,  for  example,  is  a  much  nearer 
approach  to  the  realization  of  the  Socialist  principle. 

But  even  in  this  country,  government  ownership  and 
Socialism  are  not  the  same  thing.  For  our  government 
is  a  class  government  too.  There  is  the  same  inequality 
of  wages  and  conditions  as  under  capitalist  ownership : 
many  of  the  letter  carriers  and  other  employees  are 
miserably  underpaid,  and  the  service  is  notoriously  han- 
dicapped by  private  interests.  Whether  it  is  in  Russia 
under  the  Czar  and  his  bureaucrats,  Germany  with  its 
monarchial  system  cumbered  with  the  remnants  of  feud- 
alism, or  the  United  States  with  its  manhood  suffrage 


WHAT  SOCIALISM    IS  AND  WHAT   IT   IS  NOT  I35 

foolishly  used  to  elect  the  interests  of  the  capitalist  class, 
government  ownership  can  only  be  at  best  a  framework 
for  Socialism.  It  must  wait  for  the  Socialist  spirit  to  be 
infused  into  it. 

Socialists  want  government  ownership,  Jonathan,  but 
they  don't  want  it  unless  the  people  are  to  own  the  gov- 
ernment. When  the  government  represents  the  inter- 
ests of  all  the  people  it  will  use  the  things  it  owns  and 
controls  for  the  common  good.  And  that  will  be  So- 
cialism in  practice,  my  friend. 


OBJECTIONS   TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED 

********* 

I  feel  sure  that  the  time  will  come  when  people  will  find 
it  difficult  to  believe  that  a  rich  community  such  as  our's,  hav- 
ing such  command  over  external  nature,  could  have  submitted 
to  live  such  a  mean,  shabby,  dirty  life  as  we  do. —  William  Mor- 
ris. 

Morality  and  political  economy  unite  in  repelling  the  individual 
who  consumes  without  producing. —  Balsac. 

The  restraints  of  Communism  would  be  freedom  in  comparison 
with  the  present  condition  of  the  majority  of  the  human  race. 

—  John  Stuart  Mill. 

I  promised  at  the  beginning  of  this  discussion,  friend 
Jonathan,  that  I  would  try  to  answer  the  numerous  ob- 
jections to  Sociahsm  which  you  set  forth  in  your  letter, 
and  I  cannot  close  the  discussion  without  fulfilling  that 
promise. 

Many  of  the  objections  I  have  already  disposed  of 
and  need  not,  therefore,  take  further  notice  of  them 
here.  The  remaining  ones  I  propose  to  answer  —  ex- 
cept where  I  can  show  you  that  an  answer  is  unneces- 
sary. For  you  have  answered  some  of  the  objections 
yourself,  my  friend,  though  you  were  not  aware  of  the 
fact.  I  find  in  looking  over  the  long  list  of  your  ob- 
jections that  one  excludes  another  very  often.  You 
seem,  like  a  great  many  other  people,  to  have  set  down 
all  the  objections  you  had  ever  heard,  or  could  think  of 
at  the  time,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  they  could  not  by 

136 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I37 

any  possibility  be  all  well  founded;  that  if  some  were 
wise  and  weighty  others  must  be  foolish  and  empty. 
Without  altering  the  form  of  your  objections,  simply  re- 
arranging their  order,  I  propose  to  set  forth  a  few  of 
the  contradictions  in  your  objections.  That  is  fair  logic, 
Jonathan. 

First  you  say  that  you  object  to  Socialism  because  it 
is  "  the  clamor  of  envious  men  to  take  by  force  what 
does  not  belong  to  them."  That  is  a  very  serious  objec- 
tion, if  true.  But  you  say  a  little  further  on  in  your  let- 
ter that  "  Socialism  is  a  noble  and  beautiful  dream  which 
human  beings  are  not  perfect  enough  to  realize  in  actual 
life."  Either  one  of  the  objections  may  be  valid,  Jon- 
athan, but  both  of  them  cannot  be.  Socialism  cannot 
be  both  a  noble  and  a  beautiful  dream,  too  sublime  for 
human  realization,  and  at  the  same  time  a  sordid  envy  — 
can  it? 

You  say  that  "  Socialists  are  opposed  to  law  and  order 
and  want  to  do  away  with  all  government,"  and  then 
you  say  in  another  objection  that  "  Socialists  want  to 
make  us  all  slaves  to  the  government  by  putting  every- 
thing and  everybody  under  government  control."  It 
happens  that  you  are  wrong  in  both  assertions,  but  you 
can  see  for  yourself  that  you  couldn't  possibly  be  right 
in  both  of  them  —  can't  you? 

You  object  that  under  Socialism  "  all  would  be  re- 
duced to  the  same  dead  level."  That  is  a  very  serious 
objection,  too,  but  it  cannot  be  well  founded  unless  your 
other  objection,  that  "  under  Socialism  a  few  politicians 
would  get  all  the  power  and  most  of  the  wealth,  making 
all  the  people  their  slaves  "  is  without  foundation.  Both 
objections  cannot  hold  —  can  they? 

You  say  that  "  Socialists  are  visionaries  with  cut  and 
dried  schemes  that  look  well  on  paper,  but  the  world  has 


138  COMMON    SENSE    OF    SOCIALISM 

never  paid  any  attention  to  schemes  for  reorganizing  so- 
ciety," and  then  you  object  that  "  the  SociaUsts  have  no 
definite  plans  for  what  they  propose  to  do,  and  how  they 
mean  to  do  it;  that  they  indulge  in  vague  principles 
only."  And  I  ask  you  again,  friend  Jonathan,  do  you 
think  that  both  these  objections  can  be  sound? 

You  object  that  "Socialism  is  as  old  as  the  world; 
has  been  tried  many  times  and  always  failed."  If  that 
were  true  it  would  be  a  very  serious  objection  to  Social- 
ism, of  course.  But  is  it  true?  In  another  place  you 
object  that  "  Socialism  has  never  been  tried  and  we  don't 
know  how  it  would  work."  You  see,  my  friend,  you 
can  make  either  objection  you  choose,  but  not  both. 
Either  one  may  be  right,  but  both  cannot  be. 

Now,  these  are  only  a  few  of  the  long  list  of  your  ob- 
jections which  are  directly  contradictory  and  mutually 
exclusive,  my  friend.  Some  of  them  I  have  already 
answered  directly,  the  others  I  have  answered  indirectly. 
Therefore,  I  shall  do  no  more  here  and  now  than  briefly 
summarize  the  Socialist  answer  to  them. 

Socialists  do  propose  that  society  as  a  whole  should 
take  and  use  for  the  common  good  some  things  which 
a  few  now  own,  things  which  "  belong  "  to  them  by  vir- 
tue of  laws  which  set  the  interests  of  the  few  above  the 
common  good.  But  that  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
"  the  clamor  of  envious  men  to  take  what  does  not  be- 
long to  them."  It  is  no  more  to  be  so  described  than 
taxation,  for  example  is.  Socialism  is  a  beautiful  dream 
in  one  sense.  Men  who  see  the  misery  and  despair  pro- 
duced by  capitalism  think  with  joy  of  the  days  to  come 
when  the  misery  and  despair  are  replaced  by  gladsome- 
ness  and  hope.  That  is  a  dream,  but  no  Socialist  rests 
upon  the  dream  merely :  the  hope  of  the  Socialist  is  in 


OBJECTIONS   TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I39 

the  very  material  fact  of  the  economic  development  from 
competition  to  monopoly ;  in  the  breakdown  of  capital- 
ism itself. 

You  have  probably  learned  by  this  time  that  Socialism 
does  not  mean  either  doing  away  with  all  government 
or  making  the  government  master  of  everything.  Later, 
I  want  to  return  to  the  subject,  and  to  the  charge  that 
it  would  reduce  all  to  a  dull  level.  I  shall  not  waste 
time  answering  the  objections  that  it  is  a  scheme  and 
that  it  is  not  a  scheme,  further  than  I  have  already  an- 
swered them.  And  I  am  not  going  to  waste  your  time 
arguing  at  length  the  folly  of  saying  that  Socialism  has 
been  tried  and  proved  a  failure.  The  Socialism  of  to- 
day has  nothing  to  do  with  the  thousands  of  Utopian 
schemes  which  men  have  tried.  Before  the  modern  So- 
cialist movement  came  into  existence,  during  hundreds 
of  years,  men  and  women  tried  to  realize  social  equality 
by  forming  communities  and  withdrawing  from  the  ordi- 
nary life  of  the  world.  Some  of  these  communities, 
mostly  of  a  religious  nature,  such  as  the  Shakers  and  the 
Perfectionists,  attained  some  measure  of  success  and 
lasted  a  number  of  years,  but  most  of  them  lasted  only 
a  short  time.  It  is  folly  to  say  that  Socialism  has  ever 
been  tried  anywhere  at  any  time. 

And  now,  friend  Jonathan,  I  want  to  consider  some  of 
the  more  vital  and  important  objections  to  Socialism 
made  in  your  letter.     You  object  to  Socialism 

Because  its  advocates  use  violent  speech 

Because  it  is  "  the  same  as  Anarchism  " 

Because  it  aims  to  destroy  the  family  and  the  home 

Because  it  is  opposed  to  religion 

Because  it  would  do  away  with  personal  liberty 

Because  it  would  reduce  all  to  one  dull  level 


140  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

Because  it  would  destroy  the  incentive  to  progress 

Because  it  is  impossible  unless  we  can  change  human 
nature. 

These  are  all  your  objections,  Jonathan,  and  I  am  go- 
ing to  try  to  suggest  answers  to  them. 

(i)  It  is  true  that  Socialists  sometimes  use  very  vio- 
lent language.  Like  all  earnest  and  enthusiastic  men 
who  are  possessed  by  a  great  and  overwhelming  sense  of 
wrong  and  needless  suffering,  they  sometimes  use  lan- 
guage that  is  terrible  in  its  vehemence ;  their  speech  is 
sometimes  full  of  bitter  scorn  and  burning  indignation. 
It  is  also  true  that  their  speech  is  sometimes  rough  and 
uncultured,  shocking  the  sensitive  ear,  but  I  am  sure 
you  will  agree  with  me  that  the  working  man  or  woman 
who,  never  having  had  the  advantage  of  education  and 
refined  environment,  feels  the  burden  of  the  days  that 
are  or  the  inspiration  of  better  days  to  come,  is  entitled 
to  be  heard.  So  I  am  not  going  to  apologize  for  the 
rough  and  uncultured  speech. 

And  I  am  not  going  to  apologize  for  the  violent 
speech.  It  would  be  better,  of  course,  if  all  the  advo- 
cates of  Socialism  could  master  the  difficult  art  of  stat- 
ing their  case  strongly  and  without  compromise,  but 
without  bitterness  and  without  unnecessary  offense  to 
others.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  measure  speech  m  the 
denunciation  of  unmeasurable  wrong,  and  some  of  the 
greatest  utterances  in  history  have  been  hard,  bitter, 
vehement  words  torn  from  agonized  hearts.  It  is  true 
that  Socialists  now  and  then  use  violent  language,  but 
no  Socialist  —  unless  he  is  so  overwrought  as  to  be  mo- 
mentarily irresponsible  —  advocates  violence.  The  great 
urge  and  passion  of  Socialism  is  for  the  peaceful  trans- 
formation of  society. 

I  have  heard  a  few  overwrought  Socialists,  all  of  them 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I4I 

gentle  and  generous  comrades,  incapable  of  doing  harm 
to  any  living  creature,  in  bursts  of  tempestuous  indigna- 
tion use  language  which  seemed  to  incite  their  hearers 
to  violence,  but  those  who  heard  them  understood  that 
they  were  borne  away  by  their  feelings.  I  have  never 
heard  Socialists  advocate  violence  toward  any  human 
beings  in  cold-blooded  deliberation.  But  I  have  heard 
capitalists  and  the  defenders  of  capitalism  advocate  vio- 
lence toward  Socialists  in  cold-blooded  deliberation.  I 
have  seen  in  Socialist  papers  upon  a  few  occasions  vio- 
lent utterances  which  I  deplored,  but  never  such  ad- 
vocacy of  violence  as  I  have  read  in  newspapers  opposed 
to  Socialism.  Here,  for  example,  are  some  extracts 
from  an  editorial  which  appeared  January,  1908,  in  the 
columns  of  the  Gossip,  of  Goldfield,  Nevada: 

"  A  cheaper  and  more  satisfactory  method  of  dealing  with  this 
labor  trouble  in  Goldfield  last  spring  would  have  been  to  have 
taken  half  a  dozen  of  the  Socialist  leaders  in  the  Miners'  Union 
and  hanged  them  all  to  telegraph  poles. 

"SPEAKING  DISPASSIONATELY,  AND  WITHOUT 
ANIMUS,  it  seems  clear  to  us  after  many  months  of  reflection, 
that  YOU  COULDN'T  MAKE  A  MISTAKE  IN  HANGING 
A  SOCIALIST. 

"  HE  IS  ALWAYS  BETTER  DEAD. 

"He,  breathing  peace,  breathing  order,  breathing  goodwill, 
fairness  to  all  and  moderation,  is  always  the  man  with  the  dyna- 
mite.   He  is  the  trouble-maker,  and  the  trouble-breeder. 

"  To  fully  appreciate  him  you  must  live  where  he  abounds. 

"  In  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  he  is  that  plentiful 
legacy  left  us  from  the  teachings  of  Eugene  V.  Debs,  hero  of 
the  Chicago  Haymarket  Riots. 

"ALWAYS  HANG  A  SOCIALIST.  NOT  BECAUSE 
HE'S  A  DEEP  THINKER,  BUT  BECAUSE  HE'S  A  BAD 
ACTOR." 

I  could  fill  many  pages  with  extracts  almost  as  bad  as 
the  above,  all  taken   from  capitalist  papers,  Jonathan. 


142  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

But  for  our  purpose  one  is  as  good  as  a  thousand.  I 
want  you  to  read  the  papers  carefully  with  an  eye  to 
their  class  character.  When  the  Goldfield  paper  printed 
the  foregoing  open  incitement  to  murder,  the  community 
was  already  disturbed  by  a  great  strike  and  the  President 
of  the  United  States  had  sent  federal  troops  to  Goldfield 
in  the  interest  of  the  master  class.  Suppose  that  under 
similar  circumstances  a  Socialist  paper  had  come  out  and 
said  in  big  type  that  people  "  couldn't  make  a  mistake  in 
hanging  a  capitalist,"  that  capitalists  are  "  always  better 
dead."  Suppose  that  any  Socialist  paper  urged  the  mur^ 
der  of  Republicans  and  Democrats  in  the  same  way,  da 
you  think  the  paper  would  have  been  tolerated?  That 
the  editor  would  have  escaped  jail?  Don't  you  know 
that  if  such  a  statement  had  been  published  by  any  So- 
cialist  paper  the  whole  country  would  have  been  roused, 
that  press  and  pulpit  would  have  denounced  it? 

Socialists  are  opposed  to  violence.  They  appeal  to 
brains  and  not  to  bludgeons ;  they  trust  in  ballots  and 
not  in  bullets.  The  violence  of  speech  with  which  they 
are  charged  is  not  the  advocacy  of  violence,  but  un- 
measured and  impassioned  denunciation  of  a  cruel  and 
brutal  system.  Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  clergyman  de- 
nouncing Socialists  for  their  "  violent  language."  Poor 
fellow!  He  was  quite  unconscious  that  he  was  more 
bitter  in  his  invective  than  the  men  he  attacked.  Of 
^course  Socialists  use  bitter  and  burning  language  —  but 
not  more  bitter  than  was  used  by  the  great  Hebrew 
prophets  in  their  stern  denunciations ;  not  more  bitter 
than  was  used  by  Jesus  and  his  disciples ;  not  more  bit- 
ter than  was  used  by  Martin  Luther  and  other  great 
leaders  of  the  Reformation ;  not  more  bitter  than  was 
used  by  Garrison  and  the  other  Abolitionists.  Men  with 
vital  messages  cannot  always  use  soft  words,  Jonathan. 


OBJECTIONS   TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  1 43 

(2)  Socialism  is  not  "  the  same  as  Anarchism,"  my 
friend,  but  its  very  opposite.  The  only  connection  be- 
tween them  is  that  they  are  agreed  upon  certain  criti- 
cisms of  present  society.  In  all  else  they  are  as  opposite 
as  the  poles.  The  difference  lies  not  merely  in  the  fact 
that  most  Anarchists  have  advocated  physical  violence, 
for  there  are  some  Anarchists  who  are  as  much  opposed 
to  physical  violence  as  you  or  I,  Jonathan,  and  it  is  only 
fair  and  just  that  we  should  recognize  the  fact.  It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  that  Anarchism  logically  leads  to 
physical  force  by  individuals  against  individuals,  but, 
logical  or  no,  there  are  many  Anarchists  who  are  gentle 
spirits,  holding  all  life  sacred  and  abhorring  violence  and 
assassination.  When  there  are  so  many  ready  to  be  un- 
just to  them,  we  can  afford  to  be  just  to  the  Anarchists, 
even  if  we  do  not  agree  with  them,  Jonathan. 

Sometimes  an  attempt  is  made  by  Socialists  to  ex- 
plain the  difference  between  themselves  and  Anarchists 
by  saying  that  Anarchists  want  to  destroy  all  govern- 
ment, while  Socialists  want  to  extend  government  and 
bring  everything  under  its  control ;  that  Anarchists  want 
no  laws,  while  Socialists  want  more  laws.  But  that  is 
not  an  intelligent  statement  of  the  difference.  We  So- 
cialists don't  particularly  desire  to  extend  the  functions 
of  government;  we  are  not  so  enamoured  of  laws  that 
we  want  more  of  them.  Quite  the  contrary  is  true,  in 
fact.  If  we  had  a  Socialist  government  to-morrow  in 
this  country,  one  of  the  first  and  most  important  of  its 
tasks  would  be  to  repeal  a  great  many  of  the  existing 
laws. 

Then  there  are  some  Socialists  who  try  to  explain  the 
difference  between  Socialism  and  Anarchism  by  saying 
that  the  Anarchists  are  simply  Socialists  of  a  very  ad- 
vanced type ;  that  society  must  first  pass  through  a  period 


144  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

of  Socialism,  in  which  laws  will  be  necessary,  before  it 
can  enter  upon  Anarchism,  a  state  in  which  every  man 
will  be  so  pure  and  so  good  that  he  can  be  a  law  unto 
himself,  no  other  form  of  law  being  necessary.  But 
that  does  not  settle  the  difficulty.  I  think  you  will  see, 
friend  Jonathan,  that  in  order  to  have  such  a  society  in 
which  without  laws  or  penal  codes,  or  government  of 
any  kind,  men  and  women  lived  happily  together,  it 
would  be  necessary  for  every  member  to  cultivate  a  so- 
cial sense,  a  sense  of  responsibility  to  society  as  a  whole. 
Each  member  of  society  would  have  to  become  so 
thoroughly  socialized  as  to  make  the  interests  of  so- 
ciety as  a  whole  his  chief  concern  in  life.  And  such  a 
society  would  be  simply  a  Socialist  society  perfectly  de- 
veloped, not  an  Anarchist  society.  It  would  be  a  So- 
cialist society  simply  because  it  would  be  dominated  by 
the  essential  principle  of  Socialism  —  the  idea  of  soli- 
darity, of  common  interest. 

The  basis  of  Anarchism  is  Utopian  individualism. 
Just  as  the  old  Utopian  dreamers  who  tried  to  "  estab- 
lish "  Socialism  through  the  medium  of  numerous 
"  Colonies,"  took  the  abstract  idea  of  equality  and  made 
it  their  ideal,  so  the  Anarchist  sets  up  the  abstract  idea 
of  individual  liberty.  The  true  difference  between  So- 
cialism and  Anarchism  is  that  the  Socialist  sets  the  so- 
cial interest,  the  good  of  society,  above  all  other  inter- 
ests, while  the  Anarchist  sets  the  interest  of  the  indi- 
vidual above  everything  else.  You  could  express  the 
difference  thus : 
^      Socialism  means  We  -ism 

Anarchism  means  Me  -ism 

The  Anarchist  says :  "  The  world  is  made  up  of  indi- 
viduals. What  is  called  "  society  "  is  only  a  lot  of  in- 
dividuals.   Therefore  the  individual  is  the  only  reJil  be- 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I45 

ing  and  society  a  mere  abstraction,  a  name.  As  an  in- 
dividual I  know  myself,  but  I  know  nothing  of  society ; 
1  know  my  own  interests,  but  I  know  nothing  of  what 
you  call  the  interests  of  society."  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Socialist  says  that  "  no  man  liveth  unto  himself,"  to 
use  a  biblical  phrase.  He  points  out  that  in  modern  so- 
ciety no  individual  life,  apart  from  the  social  life,  is  pos- 
sible. 

If  this  seems  a  somewhat  abstract  way  of  putting  it, 
Jonathan,  just  try  to  put  it  in  a  concrete  form  yourself 
by  means  of  a  simple  experiment.  When  you  sit  down 
to  your  breakfast  to-morrow  morning  take  time  to  think 
where  your  breakfast  came  from  and  how  it  was  pro- 
duced. Think  of  the  cofifee  plantations  in  far-oif  coun- 
tries drawn  on  for  your  breakfast;  of  the  farms,  per- 
haps thousands  of  miles  away,  from  which  came  your 
bacon  and  your  bread ;  of  the  coal  miners  toiling  that 
your  breakfast  might  be  cooked;  of  the  men  in  the  en- 
gine-rooms of  great  ships  and  on  the  tenders  of  mighty 
locomotives,  bringing  your  breakfast  supplies  across  sea 
and  land.  Then  think  of  your  clothing  in  the  same  way, 
article  by  article,  trying  to  realize  how  much  you  are 
dependent  upon  others  than  yourself.  Throughout  the 
day  apply  the  same  principle  as  you  move  about.  Apply 
it  to  the  streets  as  you  go  to  work ;  to  the  street  cars  as 
you  ride;  apply  it  to  the  provisions  which  are  made  to 
safeguard  your  health  against  devastating  plague,  the 
elaborate  system  of  drainage,  the  carefully  guarded 
water-supply,  and  so  on.  Then,  when  you  have  done 
that  for  a  day  as  far  as  possible,  ask  yourself  whether 
the  Anarchist  idea  that  every  individual  is  a  distinct  and 
separate  whole,  an  independent  being,  unrelated  to  the 
other  individuals  who  make  up  society,  is  a  true  one ;  or 
whether  the  Socialist  idea  that  all  individuals  arc  inter- 


146  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

dependent  upon  each  other,  bound  to  each  other  by  so 
many  ties  that  they  cannot  be  considered  apart,  is  the 
true  idea.    Judge  by  your  experience,  Jonathan ! 

So  the  Socialist  says  that  "  we  are  all  members  one  of 
another,"  to  use  another  familiar  biblical  phrase.  He  is 
not  less  interested  in  personal  freedom  than  the  Anar- 
chist, not  less  desirous  of  giving  to  each  individual  unit 
in  society  the  largest  possible  freedom  compatible  with 
the  like  freedom  of  all  the  other  units.  But,  while  the 
Anarchist  says  that  the  best  judge  of  that  is  the  indi- 
vidual, the  Socialist  says  that  society  is  the  best  judge, 
The  Anarchist  position  is  that,  in  the  event  of  a  con- 
flict of  interests,  the  will  of  the  individual  must  rule  at 
all  costs ;  the  Socialist  says  that,  in  the  event  of  such  a 
conflict  of  interests,  the  will  of  the  individual  must  give 
way.  That  is  the  real  philosophical  difference  between 
the  two. 

Anarchism  is  not  important  enough  in  America,  friend 
Jonathan,  to  justify  our  devoting  so  much  time  and 
space  to  the  discussion  of  its  philosophy  as  opposed  to 
the  philosophy  of  Socialism,  except  for  the  bearing  it 
has  upon  the  political  movement  of  the  working  class. 
I  want  you  to  see  just  how  Anarchism  works  out  when 
the  test  of  practical   application   is   resorted  to. 

Just  as  the  Anarchist  sets  up  an  abstract  idea  of  in- 
dividual liberty  as  his  ideal,  so  he  sets  up  an  abstract 
idea  of  tyranny.  To  him  Law,  the  will  of  society,  is  the 
essence  of  tyranny.  Laws  are  limitations  of  individual 
liberty  set  by  society  and  therefore  they  are  tyrannical. 
No  matter  what  the  law  may  be,  all  laws  are  wrong. 
There  cannot  be  such  a  thing  as  a  good  law,  according  to 
this  view.  To  illustrate  just  where  this  leads  us,  let  me 
tell  of  a  recent  experience :  I  was  lecturing  in  a  New 
England  town,  and  after  the  lecture  an  Anarchist  rose  to 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I47 

ask  some  questions.  He  wanted  to  know  if  it  was  not 
a  fact  that  all  laws  were  oppressive  and  bad,  to  which,  of 
course,  I  replied  that  I  thought  not. 

I  asked  him  whether  the  law  forbidding  murder  and 
providing  for  its  punishment,  oppressed  him;  whether  he 
felt  it  a  hardship  not  to  be  allowed  to  murder  at  will, 
and  he  replied  that  he  did  not.  I  cited  many  other  laws, 
such  as  the  laws  relating  to  arson,  burglary,  criminal 
assault,  and  so  on,  with  the  same  result.  His  outcry 
about  the  oppression  of  law,  as  such,  proved  to  be  just 
an  empty  cry  about  an  abstraction ;  a  bogey  of  his  imagi- 
nation. Of  course,  he  could  cite  bad  laws,  unjust  laws, 
as  I  could  have  done;  but  that  would  simply  show  that 
some  laws  are  not  right  —  a  proposition  upon  which 
most  people  will  agree.  My  Anarchist  friend  quoted 
Herbert  Spencer  in  support  of  his  contention.  He  re- 
ferred to  Spencer's  well-known  summary  of  the  social 
legislation  of  England.  So  I  asked  my  friend  if  he 
thought  the  Factory  Acts  were  oppressive  and  tyrannical, 
and  he  replied  that,  from  an  Anarchist  viewpoint,  they 
were. 

Think  of  that,  Jonathan!  Little  boys  and  girls,  five 
and  six  years  old,  were  taken  out  of  their  beds  crying 
and  begging  to  be  allowed  to  sleep,  and  carried  to  the 
factory  gates.  Then  they  were  driven  to  work  by  brutal 
overseers  armed  with  leather  whips.  Sometimes  they 
fell  asleep  at  their  tasks  and  then  they  were  beaten  and 
kicked  and  cursed  at  like  dogs.  Little  boys  and  girls 
from  orphan  asylums  were  sent  to  work  thus,  and  died 
like  flies  in  summer  —  their  bodies  being  secretly  buried 
at  night  for  fear  of  an  outcry.  You  can  find  the  terrible 
story  told  in  The  Industrial  History  of  England,  by  H. 
de  B.  Gibbins,  which  ought  to  be  in  your  public  library. 

Humane  men  set  up  a  protest  at  last  and  there  was  a 


148  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

movement  through  the  country  demanding  protection 
for  the  children.  Once  a  member  of  parliament  held 
up  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  whip  of  leather  thongs 
attached  to  an  oak  handle,  telling  his  colleagues  that  a 
few  days  before  it  had  been  used  to  flog  little  children 
who  were  mere  babies.  The  demand  was  made  for 
legislation  to  stop  this  barbarous  treatment  of  children, 
to  protect  their  childhood.  The  factory  owners  opposed 
the  passing  of  such  laws  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be 
an  interference  with  their  individual  liberties,  their  right 
to  do  as  they  pleased.  And  the  Anarchist  comes  always 
and  inevitably  to  the  same  conclusion.  Factory  laws, 
public  health  laws,  education  laws  —  all  denounced  as 
"  interferences  with  individual  liberty."  Extremes 
meet:  the  Anarchist  in  the  name  of  individual  liberty, 
like  the  capitalist,  would  prevent  society  from  putting  a 
stop  to  the  exploitation  of  its  little  ones. 

The  real  danger  in  Anarchism  is  not  that  some  An- 
archists believe  in  violence,  and  that  from  time  to  time 
there  are  cowardly  assassinations  which  are  as  futile  as 
they  are  cowardly.  The  real  danger  lies  first  in  the  re- 
actionary principle  that  the  interests  of  society  must  be 
subordinated  to  the  interests  of  the  individual,  and,  sec- 
ond, in  holding  out  a  hope  to  the  working  class  that  its 
freedom  from  oppression  and  exploitation  may  be 
brought  about  by  other  than  political,  legislative  means. 
And  it  is  this  second  objection  which  is  of  extreme  im- 
portance to  the  working  class  of  America  at  this  time. 

From  time  to  time,  in  all  working  class  movements, 
there  is  an  outcry  against  political  action,  an  outcry 
raised  by  impetuous  men-in-a-hurry  who  want  twelve 
o'clock  at  eleven.  They  cry  out  that  the  ballot  is  too 
slow ;  they  want  some  more  "  direct "  action  than  the 
ballot-box  allows.    But  you  will  find,  Jonathan,  that  the 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  149 

men  who  raise  this  cry  have  nothing  to  propose  except 
riot  to  take  the  place  of  political  action.  Either  they 
would  have  the  workers  give  up  all  struggle  and  depend 
upon  moral  suasion,  or  they  would  have  them  riot.  And 
we  Socialists  say  that  ballots  are  better  weapons  than 
bullets  for  the  workers.  You  may  depend  upon  it  that 
any  agitation  among  the  workers  against  the  use  of  po- 
litical weapons  leads  to  Anarchism  —  and  to  riot.  I 
hope  you  will  find  time  to  read  Plechanofif's  Anarchism 
and  Socialism,  Jonathan.  It  will  well  repay  your  care- 
ful study. 

No,  Socialism  is  not  related  to  Anarchism,  but  it  is, 
on  the  contrary,  the  one  great  active  force  in  the  world 
to-day  that  is  combating  Anarchism.  There  is  a  close 
affinity  between  Anarchism  and  the  idea  of  capitalism, 
for  both  place  the  individual  above  society.  The  Social- 
ist believes  that  the  highest  good  of  the  individual  will 
be  realized  through  the  highest  good  of  society. 

(3)  Socialism  involves  no  attack  upon  the  family  and 
the  home.  Those  who  raise  this  objection  against  So- 
cialism charge  that  it  is  one  of  the  aims  of  the  Socialist 
movement  to  do  away  with  the  monogamic  marriage 
and  to  replace  it  with  what  is  called  "  Free  Love."  By 
this  term  they  do  not  really  mean  free  love  at  all.  For 
love  is  always  free,  Jonathan.  Not  all  the  wealth  of 
a  Rockefeller  could  buy  one  single  touch  of  love.  Love 
is  always  free;  it  cannot  be  bought  and  it  cannot  be 
bound.  No  one  can  love  for  a  price,  or  in  obedience  to 
laws  or  threats.  The  term  "  Free  Love  "  is  therefore  a 
misnomer. 

What  the  opponents  of  Socialism  have  in  mind  when 
they  use  the  term  is  rather  lust  than  love.  They  charge 
us  Socialists  with  trying  to  do  away  with  the  mono- 
gamic marriage  relation  —  the  marriage  of  one  man  to 


150  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

one  woman  —  and  the  family  life  resulting  therefrom. 
They  say  that  we  want  promiscuous  sex  relations,  com- 
munal life  instead  of  family  life  and  the  turning  over  of 
all  parental  functions  to  the  community,  the  State.  And 
to  charge  that  these  things  are  involved  in  Socialism  is 
at  once  absurd  and  untrue.  I  venture  to  say,  Jonathan, 
that  the  percentage  of  Socialists  who  believe  in  such 
things  is  not  greater  than  the  percentage  of  Christians 
believing  in  them,  or  the  percentage  of  Republicans  or 
Democrats.     They  have  nothing  to  do  with  Socialism. 

Let  us  see  upon  what  sort  of  evidence  the  charge  is 
based:  On  the  one  hand,  finding  nothing  in  the  pro- 
grammes of  the  Socialist  parties  of  the  world  to  support 
the  charge,  we  find  them  going  back  to  the  Utopian 
schemes  with  communistic  features.  They  go  back  to 
Plato,  even!  Because  Plato  in  his  Republic,  which  was 
a  wholly  imaginary  description  of  the  ideal  society  he 
conceived  in  his  mind,  advocated  community  of  sex 
relations  as  well  as  community  of  goods,  therefore  the 
Socialists,  who  do  not  advocate  community  of  goods  or 
community  of  wives,  must  be  charged  with  Plato's  prin- 
ciples! In  like  manner,  the  fact  that  many  other  com- 
munistic experiments  included  either  communism  of  sex 
relations,  as,  for  example,  the  Adamites,  during  the  Hus- 
site wars,  in  Germany,  and  the  Perfectionists,  of  Oneida, 
with  their  "  community  marriage,"  all  the  male  members 
of  a  community  being  married  to  all  the  female  mem- 
bers ;  or  enforced  celibacy,  as  did  the  Shakers  and  the 
Harmonists,  among  many  other  similar  groups,  is  urged 
against  Socialism. 

I  need  not  argue  the  injustice  and  the  stupidity  of  this 
sort  of  criticism,  Jonathan.  What  have  the  Socialists  of 
twentieth  century  America  to  do  with  Plato?  His  Uto- 
pian ideal  is  not  their  ideal :  they  are  neither  aiming  at 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  I5I 

community  of  goods  nor  at  community  of  wives.  And 
when  we  put  aside  Plato  and  the  Platonic  communities, 
the  first  fact  to  challenge  attention  is  that  the  communi- 
ties which  established  laws  relating  to  sex  relations 
which  were  opposed  to  the  monogamic  family,  whether 
promiscuity,  so-called  free  love ;  plural  marriage,  as  in 
Mormonism,  or  celibacy,  as  in  Harmonism  and  Shaker- 
ism,  were  all  religious  communities.  In  a  word,  all  these 
experiments  which  antagonized  the  monogamic  family 
relation  were  the  result  of  various  interpretations  of  the 
Bible  and  the  efforts  of  those  who  accepted  those  inter- 
pretations to  rule  their  lives  in  accordance  therewith. 
In  every  case  communism  was  only  a  means  to  an  end,  a 
way  of  realizing  what  they  considered  to  be  the  true  re- 
ligious life.  In  other  words,  my  friend,  most  of  the  so- 
called  free  love  experiments  made  in  these  communities 
have  been  offshoots  of  Christianity  rather  than  of  So- 
cialism. 

And  I  ask  you,  Jonathan  Edwards,  as  a  fair-minded 
American,  what  you  would  think  of  it  if  the  Socialists 
charged  Christianity  with  being  opposed  to  the  family 
and  the  home?  It  would  not  he  true  of  Christianity  and 
it  is  not  true  of  Socialism. 

But  there  is  another  form  of  argument  which  is  some- 
times resorted  to.  The  history  of  the  movement  is 
searched  for  examples  of  what  is  called  free  love.  That 
is  to  say  that  because  from  time  to  time  there  have  been 
individual  Socialists  who  have  refused  to  recognize  the 
ceremonial  and  legal  aspects  of  marriage,  believing  love 
to  be  the  only  real  marriage  bond,  notwithstanding  that 
the  vast  majority  of  Socialists  have  recognized  the  legal 
and  ceremonial  aspects  of  marriage,  they  have  been  ac- 
cused of  trying  to  do  away  with  marriage.  Our  op- 
ponents have  even  stooped  so  low  as  to  seize  upon  every 


152  COMMON    SENSli    OF    SOCIALISM 

case  where  Socialists  have  sought  divorce  as  a  means  of 
undoing  terrible  wrong,  and  then  married  other  hus- 
bands and  wives,  and  proclaimed  it  as  a  fresh  proof  that 
Socialism  is  opposed  to  marriage  and  the  family.  When 
I  have  read  some  of  these  cruel  and  dishonest  attacks, 
often  written  by  men  who  know  better,  my  soul  has  been 
sickened  at  the  thought  of  the  cowardice  and  dishonesty 
to  which  the  opponents  of  Socialism  resort. 

Suppose  that  every  time  a  prominent  Christian  be- 
comes divorced,  and  then  remarries,  the  Socialists  of  the 
country  were  to  attack  the  Christian  religion  and  the 
Christian  churches,  upon  the  ground  that  they  are  op- 
posed to  marriage  and  the  family,  does  anybody  think 
that  that  would  be  fair  and  just?  But  it  is  the  very 
thing  which  happens  whenever  Socialists  are  divorced. 
It  happened,  not  so  very  long  ago,  that  a  case  of  the 
kind  was  made  the  occasion  of  hundreds  of  editorials 
against  Socialism  and  hundreds  of  sermons.  The  facts 
were  these :  A  man  and  his  wife,  both  Socialists,  had  for 
a  long  time  realized  that  their  marriage  was  an  unhappy 
one.  Failing  to  realize  the  happiness  they  sought,  it  was 
mutually  agreed  that  the  wife  should  apply  for  a  di- 
vorce. They  had  been  legally  married  and  desired  to  be 
legally  separated.  Meantime  the  man  had  come  to  be- 
lieve that  his  happiness  depended  upon  his  wedding  an- 
other woman.  The  divorce  was  to  be  procured  as  speed- 
ily as  possible  to  enable  the  legal  marriage  of  the  man 
and  the  woman  he  had  grown  to  love. 

Those  were  the  facts  as  they  appeared  in  the  press, 
the  facts  upon  which  so  many  hundreds  of  attacks  were 
made  upon  Socialism  and  the  Socialist  movement.  Two 
or  three  weeks  later,  an  Episcopal  clergyman,  not  a 
Socialist,  left  the  wife  he  had  ceased  to  love  and  with 
whom  he  had  presumably  not  been  happy.     He  had  leg- 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  153 

ally  married  his  wife,  but  he  did  not  bother  about  get- 
ting a  legal  separation.  He  just  left  his  wife;  just  ran 
away.  He  not  only  did  not  bother  about  getting  a  legal 
separation,  but  he  ran  away  with  a  young  girl,  whom  he 
had  grown  to  love.  They  lived  together  as  man  and 
wife,  without  legal  marriage,  for  if  they  went  through 
any  marriage  form  at  all  it  was  not  a  legal  marriage 
and  the  man  was  guilty  of  bigamy.  Was  there  any  at- 
tack upon  the  Episcopal  Church  in  consequence?  Were 
hundreds  of  sermons  preached  and  editorials  written  to 
denounce  the  church  to  which  he  belonged,  accusing  it 
of  aiming  to  do  away  with  the  monogamic  marriage  re- 
lation, to  break  up  the  family  and  the  home? 

Not  a  bit  of  it,  Jonathan.  There  were  some  criti- 
cisms of  the  man,  but  there  were  more  attempts  to  find 
excuses  for  him.  There  were  thousands  of  expressions 
of  sympathy  with  his  church.  But  there  were  no  at- 
tacks such  as  were  aimed  at  Socialism  in  the  other  case, 
notwithstanding  that  the  Socialist  strictly  obeyed  the  law 
whereas  the  clergyman  broke  the  law  and  defied  it.  I 
think  that  was  a  fair  way  to  treat  the  case,  but  I  ask  the 
same  fair  treatment  of  Socialism. 

So  far,  Jonathan,  I  have  been  taking  a  defensive  at- 
titude, just  replying  to  the  charge  that  Socialism  is  an 
attack  upon  the  family  and  the  home.  Now,  I  want  to 
go  a  step  further:  I  want  to  take  an  affirmative  position 
and  to  say  that  Socialism  comes  as  the  defender  of  the 
home  and  the  family ;  that  capitalism  from  the  very  first 
has  been  attacking  the  home.  I  am  going  to  turn  the 
tables,  Jonathan. 

When  capitalism  began,  when  it  came  with  its  steam 
engine  and  its  power-loom,  what  was  the  first  thing  it 
did?  Why,  it  entered  the  home  and  took  the  child  from 
the  mother  and  made  it  a  part  of  a  great  system  of 


154  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

wheels  and  levers  and  springs,  all  driven  for  one  end  — 
the  grinding  of  profit.  It  began  its  career  by  breaking 
down  the  bonds  between  mother  and  child.  Then  it 
took  another  step.  It  took  the  mother  away  from  the 
baby  in  the  cradle  in  order  that  she  too  might  become 
part  of  the  great  profit-grinding  system.  Her  breasts 
might  be  full  to  overflowing  with  the  food  wonderfully 
provided  for  the  child  by  Nature ;  the  baby  in  the  cradle 
might  cry  for  the  very  food  that  was  bursting  from  its 
mother's  breasts,  but  Capital  did  not  care.  The  mother 
was  taken  away  from  the  child  and  the  child  was  left 
to  get  on  as  best  it  might  upon  a  miserable  substitute  for 
its  mother's  milk.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  babies  die 
each  year  for  no  other  reason  than  this. 

There  will  never  be  safety  for  the  home  and  the  fam- 
ily so  long  as  babies  are  robbed  of  their  mothers'  care ; 
so  long  as  little  children  are  made  to  do  the  work  of 
men ;  so  long  as  the  girls  who  are  to  be  the  wives  and 
mothers  are  sent  into  wifehood  and  motherhood  unpre- 
pared, simply  because  the  years  of  maidenhood  are  spent 
in  factories  that  ought  to  be  spent  in  preparation  for 
wifehood  and  motherhood.  Here  is  capitalism  cutting 
at  the  very  heart  of  the  home,  with  Socialism  as  the  only 
defender  of  the  home  it  is  charged  with  attacking.  For 
Socialism  would  give  the  child  its  right  to  childhood ;  it 
would  give  the  mother  her  freedom  to  nourish  her  babe; 
it  would  give  to  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  future 
the  opportunities  for  preparation  they  cannot  now  enjoy. 

I  ask  you,  friend  Jonathan,  to  think  of  the  tens  and 
thousands  of  women  who  marry  to-day,  not  because  they 
love  and  are  loved  in  return,  but  for  the  sake  of  getting 
a  home.  Socialism  would  put  an  end  to  that  condition 
by  making  woman  economically  and  politically  free. 
Think  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  in  our 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  1 55 

land  who  do  not,  dare  not,  marry  because  they  have  no 
certainty  of  earning  a  living  adequate  to  the  maintenance 
of  wives  and  families ;  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
prostitutes  in  our  country,  the  vast  majority  of  whom 
have  been  driven  to  that  terrible  fate  by  economic  causes 
outside  of  their  control.  Socialism  would  at  least  re- 
move the  economic  pressure  which  forces  so  many  of 
these  women  down  into  the  terrible  hell  of  prostitution. 
I  ask  you,  Jonathan,  to  think  also  of  the  thousands  of 
wives  who  are  deserted  every  year.  So  far  as  the  in- 
vestigations of  the  charity  organizations  into  this  serious 
matter  have  gone,  it  has  been  shown  that  poverty  is 
responsible  for  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  these  de- 
sertions. Socialism  would  not  only  destroy  the  poverty, 
but  it  would  set  woman  economically  free,  thus  remov- 
ing the  main  causes  of  the  evil. 

Oh,  Jonathan  Edwards,  hard-headed,  practical  Jona- 
than, do  you  think  that  the  existence  of  the  family  de- 
pends upon  keeping  women  m  the  position  of  an  inferior 
class,  politically  and  economically?  Do  you  think  that 
when  women  are  politically  and  economically  the  equals 
of  men,  so  that  they  no  longer  have  to  marry  for  homes, 
or  to  stand  brutal  treatment  because  they  have  no  other 
homes  than  the  men  afford ;  so  that  no  woman  is  forced 
to  sell  her  body  —  I  ask  you,  when  women  are  thus  free 
do  you  believe  that  the  marriage  system  will  be  endan- 
gered thereby?  For  that  is  what  the  contention  of  the 
opponents  of  Socialism  comes  to  in  the  last  analysis,  m\ 
friend.  Socialism  will  only  afifect  the  marriage  system 
in  so  far  as  it  raises  the  standards  of  society  as  a  whole 
and  makes  woman  man's  political  and  economic  equal. 
Are  you  afraid  of  that,  Jonathan? 

(4)  SociaUsm  is  not  opposed  to  rehgion.  It  is  per- 
fectly true  that  some  Socialists  oppose  religion,  but  So- 


156  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

cialism  itself  has  nothing  to  do  with  matters  of  religion. 
In  the  Socialist  movement  to-day  there  are  men  and 
women  of  all  creeds  and  all  shades  of  religious  belief. 
By  all  the  Socialist  parties  of  the  world  religion  is  de- 
clared to  be  a  private  matter  —  and  the  declaration  is  hon- 
estly meant ;  it  is  not  a  tactical  utterance,  used  as  bait  to 
the  unwary,  which  the  Socialists  secretly  repudiate.  In 
the  Socialist  movement  of  America  to-day  there  are  Jews 
and  Christians,  Catholics  and  Protestants,  Spiritualists 
and  Christian  Scientists,  Unitarians  and  Trinitarians, 
Methodists  and  Baptists,  Atheists  and  Agnostics,  all 
united  in  one  great  comradeship. 

This  was  not  always  the  case.  When  the  scientific 
Socialist  movement  began  in  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century,  Science  was  engaged  in  a  great  intellectual  en- 
counter with  Dogma.  All  the  younger  men  were  drawn 
into  the  scientific  current  of  the  time.  It  was  natural, 
then,  that  the  most  radical  movement  of  the  time  should 
partake  of  the  universal  scientific  spirit  and  temper.  The 
Christians  of  that  day  thought  that  the  work  of  Darwin 
and  his  school  would  destroy  religion.  They  made  the 
very  natural  mistake  of  supposing  that  dogma  and  re- 
ligion were  the  same  thing,  a  mistake  which  their  critics 
fully  shared. 

You  know  what  happened,  Jonathan.  The  Christians 
gradually  came  to  realize  that  no  religion  could  oppose 
the  truth  and  continue  to  be  a  power.  Gradually  they 
accepted  the  position  of  the  Darwinian  critics,  until  to- 
day there  is  no  longer  the  great  vital  controversy  upon 
matters  of  theology  which  our  fathers  knew.  In  a  very 
similar  manner,  the  present  generation  of  Socialists  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  attacks  upon  religion  which  the 
Socialists  of  fifty  years  ago  indulged  in.  The  position 
of  all  the  Sociahst  parties  of  the  world  to-day  is  that 


OBJECTIONS   TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  1^7 

they  have  nothing  to  do  with  matters  of  religious  beHef ; 
that  these  belong  to  the  individual  alone. 

There  is  a  sense  in  which  Socialism  becomes  the  hand- 
maiden of  religion :  not  of  creeds  and  theological  beliefs, 
but  of  religion  in  its  broadest  sense.  When  you  exam- 
ine the  great  religions  of  the  world,  Jonathan,  you  will 
find  that  in  addition  to  certain  supernatural  beliefs  there 
are  always  great  ethical  principles  which  constitute  the 
most  vital  elements  in  religion.  Putting  aside  the  theo- 
logical beliefs  about  God  and  the  immortality  of  tlie  soul, 
what  was  it  that  gave  Judaism  its  power?  Was  it  not 
the  ethical  teaching  of  its  great  prophets,  such  as  Isaiah, 
Joel,  Amos  and  Ezekiel  —  the  stern  rebuke  of  the  op- 
pressors of  the  poor  and  downtrodden,  the  scathing  de- 
nunciation of  the  despoilers  of  the  people,  the  great 
vision  of  a  unified  world  in  which  there  should  be  peace, 
when  war  should  no  more  blight  the  world  and  when  the 
weapons  of  war  should  be  forged  into  plowshares  and 
pruning  hooks?  Leaving  matters  of  theology  aside,  are 
not  these  the  principles  which  make  Judaism  a  living 
religion  to-day  for  so  many?  And  I  say  to  you,  Jona- 
than, that  Socialism  is  not  only  not  opposed  to  these 
things,  but  they  can  only  be  realized  under  Socialism. 

So  with  Christianity.  In  its  broadest  sense,  leaving 
aside  all  matters  of  a  supernatural  character,  concern- 
ing ourselves  only  with  the  relation  of  the  religion  to 
life,  to  its  material  problems,  we  find  in  Christianity  the 
same  great  faith  in  the  coming  of  universal  peace  and 
brotherhood,  the  same  defense  of  the  poor  and  the  op- 
pressed, the  same  scathing  rebuke  of  the  oppressor,  that 
we  find  in  Judaism.  There  is  the  same  relentless 
scourge  of  the  despoilers,  of  those  who  devour  widows' 
houses.  And  again  I  say  that  Socialism  is  not  only  not 
opposed  to  the  great  social  ideals  of  Christianity,  but  it 


158  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

is  the  only  means  whereby  tfiey  may  be  realized.  And 
the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  teachings  of  Confucius, 
Buddha  and  Mahomet.  The  great  social  ideals  common 
to  all  the  world's  religions  can  never  be  attained  under 
capitalism.  Not  till  the  Socialist  state  is  reached  will 
the  Golden  Rule,  common  to  all  the  great  religions,  be 
possible  as  a  rule  of  life.  No  ethical  life  is  possible  ex- 
cept as  the  outgrowing  of  just  and  harmonic  economic 
relations ;  until  it  is  rooted  in  proper  economic  soil. 

No,  Jonathan,  it  is  not  true  that  Socialism  is  antag- 
onistic to  religion.  With  beliefs  and  speculations  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  the  universe  it  has  nothing  to  do.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  speculations  concerning  the  exist- 
ence of  man  after  physical  death,  with  belief  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul.  These  are  for  the  individual. 
Socialism  concerns  itself  with  man's  material  life  and 
his  relation  to  his  fellow  man.  And  there  is  nothing  in 
the  philosophy  of  Socialism,  or  the  platform  of  the  po- 
litical Socialist  movement,  antagonistic  to  the  social  as- 
pects of  any  religion. 

(5)  I  have  already  had  a  good  deal  to  say  in  the 
course  of  this  discussion  concerning  the  subject  of  per- 
sonal freedom.  The  common  idea  of  Socialism  as  a 
great  bureaucratic  government  owning  and  controlling 
everything,  deciding  what  every  man  and  woman  must 
do,  is  wholly  wrong.  The  aim  and  purpose  of  the  So- 
cialist movement  is  to  make  life  more  free  for  the  indi- 
vidual, and  not  to  make  it  less  free.  Socialism  means 
equality  of  opportunity  for  every  child  born  into  the 
world ;  it  means  doing  away  with  class  privilege ;  it 
means  doing  away  with  the  ownership  by  the  few  of  the 
things  upon  which  the  lives  of  the  many  depend,  through 
which  the  many  are  exploited  by  the  few.  Do  you  see 
how  individuals  are  to  be  enslaved  through  the  destruc- 


OBJECTIONS    TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  1 59 

tion  of  the  power  of  a  few  over  many,  Jonathan?  Think 
it  out! 

It  is  in  the  private  ownership  of  social  resources,  and 
the  private  control  of  social  opportunities,  that  the  es- 
sence of  tyranny  lies.  Let  me  ask  you,  my  friend, 
whether  you  feel  yourself  robbed  of  any  part  of  your 
personal  liberty  when  you  go  to  a  public  library  and 
take  out  a  book  to  read,  or  into  one  of  our  public  art 
galleries  to  look  upon  great  pictures  which  you  could 
never  otherwise  see?  Is  it  not  rather  a  fact  that  your 
life  is  thereby  enriched  and  broadened ;  that  instead  of 
taking  anything  from  you  these  things  add  to  your  en- 
joyment and  to  your  power?  Do  you  feel  that  you  are 
robbed  of  any  element  of  your  personal  freedom  through 
the  action  of  the  city  government  in  making  parks  for 
your  recreation,  providing  hospitals  to  care  for  you  in 
case  of  accident  or  illness,  maintaining  a  fire  department 
to  protect  you  against  the  ravages  of  fire?  Do  you  feel 
that  in  maintaining  schools,  baths,  hospitals,  parks,  mu- 
seums, public  lighting  service,  water,  streets  and  street 
cleaning  service,  the  city  government  is  taking  away 
your  personal  liberties?  I  ask  these  questions,  Jona- 
than, for  the  reason  that  all  these  things  contain  the  ele- 
ments of  Socialism. 

When  you  go  into  a  government  post-ofiice  and  pay 
two  cents  for  the  service  of  having  a  letter  carried  right 
across  the  country,  knowing  that  every  person  must  pay 
the  same  as  you  and  can  enjoy  the  same  right  as  you,  do 
you  feel  that  you  are  less  free  than  when  you  go  into  an 
express  company's  office  and  pay  the  price  they  demand 
for  taking  your  package?  Does  it  really  help  you  to 
enjoy  yourself,  to  feel  yourself  more  free,  to  know  that 
in  the  case  of  the  express  company's  service  only  part  of 
your  money  will  be  used  to  pay  the  cost  of  carrying  the 


l60  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

package ;  that  the  larger  part  will  go  to  bribe  legislators, 
to  corrupt  public  officials  and  to  build  up  huge  fortunes  for 
a  few  investors?  The  post-office  is  not  a  perfect  ex- 
ample of  Socialism :  there  are  too  many  private  grafters 
battening  upon  the  postal  system,  the  railway  companies 
plunder  it  and  the  great  mass  of  the  clerks  and  carriers 
are  underpaid.  But  so  far  as  the  principles  of  social 
organization  and  equal  charges  for  everybody  go  they 
are  socialistic.  The  government  does  not  try  to  compel 
you  to  write  letters  any  more  than  the  private  company 
tries  to  compel  you  to  send  packages.  If  you  said  that, 
rather  than  use  the  postal  system,  you  would  carry  your 
own  letter  across  the  continent,  even  if  you  decided  to 
walk  all  the  way,  the  government  would  not  try  to  stop 
you,  any  more  than  the  express  company  would  try  to 
stop  you  from  carrying  your  trunk  on  your  shoulder 
across  the  country.  But  in  the  case  of  the  express  com- 
pany you  must  pay  tribute  to  men  who  have  been  shrewd 
enough  to  exploit  a  social  necessity  for  their  private 
gain. 

Do  you  really  imagine,  Jonathan,  that  in  those  cities 
where  the  street  railways,  for  example,  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  people  there  is  a  loss  of  personal  liberty  as  a  re- 
sult; that  because  the  people  who  use  the  street  railways 
do  not  have  to  pay  tribute  to  a  corporation  they  are  less 
free  than  they  would  otherwise  be?  So  far  as  these 
things  are  owned  by  the  people  and  democratically  man- 
aged in  the  interests  of  all,  they  are  socialistic  and  an 
appeal  to  such  concrete  facts  as  these  is  far  better  than 
any  amount  of  abstract  reasoning.  You  are  not  a  closet 
philosopher,  interested  in  fine-spun  theories,  but  a  prac- 
tical man,  graduated  from  the  great  school  of  hard  ex- 
perience.    For   you,    if    I   am   not   mistaken,    Garfield's 


OBJECTIONS   TO    SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  l6l 

aphorism,  that  "  An  ounce  of  fact  is  worth  many  tons  of 
theory,"  is  true. 

So  I  want  to  ask  you  finally  concerning  this  question 
of  personal  liberty  whether  you  think  you  would  be  less 
free  than  you  are  to-day  if  your  Pittsburg  foundries  and 
mills,  instead  of  belonging  to  corporations  organized  for 
the  purpose  of  making  profit,  belonged  to  the  Common- 
wealth of  Pennsylvania,  and  if  they  were  operated  for 
the  common  good  instead  of  as  now  to  serve  the  inter- 
ests of  a  few.  Would  you  be  less  free  if,  instead  of 
a  corporation  trying  to  make  the  workers  toil  as  many 
hours  as  possible  for  as  little  pay  as  possible,  naturally 
and  consistently  avoiding  as  far  as  possible  the  expend- 
iture of  time  and  money  upon  safety  appliances  and  other 
means  of  protecting  the  health  and  lives  of  the  workers, 
the  mills  were  operated  upon  the  principle  of  guarding 
the  health  and  lives  of  the  workers  as  much  as  possible, 
reducing  the  hours  of  labor  to  a  minimum  and  paying 
them  for  their  work  as  much  as  possible?  Is  it  a  sensi- 
ble fear,  my  friend,  that  the  people  of  any  country  will 
be  less  free  as  they  acquire  more  power  over  their  own 
lives?  You  see,  Jonathan,  I  want  you  to  take  a  practical 
view  of  the  matter. 

(6)  The  cry  that  Socialism  would  reduce  all  men  and 
women  to  one  dull  level  is  another  bogey  which  fright- 
ens a  great  many  good  and  wise  people.  It  has  been 
answered  thousands  of  times  by  Socialist  writers  and  you 
will  find  it  discussed  in  most  of  the  popular  books  and 
pamphlets  published  in  the  interest  of  the  Socialist  prop- 
aganda.    I  shall  therefore  dismiss  it  very  briefly. 

Like  many  other  objections,  this  rests  upon  an  entire 
misapprehension  of  what  Socialism  really  means.  The 
people  who  make  it  have  got  firmly  into  their  minds  \he 


l62  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

idea  that  Socialism  aims  to  make  all  men  equal ;  to  devise 
some  plan  for  removing  the  inequalities  with  which  they 
are  endowed  by  nature.  They  fear  that,  in  order  to 
realize  this  ideal  of  equality,  the  strong  will  be  held  down 
to  the  level  of  the  weak,  the  daring  to  the  level  of  the 
timid,  the  wisest  to  the  level  of  the  least  wise.  That  is 
their  conception  of  the  equality  of  which  Socialists  talk. 
And  I  am  free  to  say,  Jonathan,  that  I  do  not  wonder 
that  sensible  men  should  oppose  such  equality  as  that. 

Even  if  it  were  possible,  through  the  adoption  of  some 
system  of  stirpiculture,  to  breed  all  human  beings  to  a 
common  type,  so  that  they  would  all  be  tall  or  short, 
fat  or  thin,  light  or  dark,  according  to  choice,  it  would 
not  be  a  very  desirable  ideal,  would  it  ?  And  if  we  could 
get  everybody  to  think  exactly  the  same  thoughts,  to 
admire  exactly  the  same  things,  to  have  exactly  the  same 
mental  powers  and  exactly  the  same  measure  of  moral 
strength  and  weakness,  I  do  not  think  that  would  be  a 
very  desirable  ideal.  The  world  of  human  boijjgs  would 
then  be  just  as  dull  and  uninspiring  as  a  waJt^'brk  show. 
Imagine  yourself  in  a  city  where  every  house  was  exactly 
like  every  other  house  in  all  particulars,  even  to  its  fur- 
nishings ;  imagine  all  the  people  being  exactly  the  same 
height  and  weight,  looking  exactly  alike,  dressed  exactly 
alike,  eating  exactly  alike,  going  to  bed  and  rising  at  the 
same  time,  thinking  exactly  alike  and  feeling  exactly 
alike  —  how  would  you  like  to  live  in  such  a  city,  Jona- 
than? The  city  or  state  of  Absolute  Equality  is  only  a 
fool's  dream. 

No  sane  man  or  woman  wants  absolute  equality,  friend 
Jonathan,  for  it  is  as  undesirable  as  it  is  unimaginable. 
What  Socialism  wants  is  equality  of  opportunity  merely. 
No  Socialist  wants  to  pull  down  the  strong  to  the  level 
of  the  weak,  the  wise  to  the  level  of  the  less  wise.     So- 


OBJECTIONS    TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  163 

cialism  does  not  imply  pulling  anybody  down.  It  does 
not  imply  a  great  plain  of  humanity  with  no  mountain 
peaks  of  genius  or  character.  It  is  not  opposed  to  nat- 
ural inequalities,  but  only  to  man-made  inequalities.  Its 
only  protest  is  against  these  artificial  inequalities,  prod- 
ucts of  man's  ignorance  and  greed.  It  does  not  aim  to 
pull  down  the  highest,  but  to  lift  up  the  lowest ;  it  does 
not  want  to  put  a  load  of  disadvantage  upon  the  strong 
and  gifted,  but  it  wants  to  take  off  the  heavy  burdens  of 
disadvantage  which  keep  others  from  rising.  In  a  word, 
Socialism  implies  nothing  more  than  giving  every  child 
born  into  the  world  equal  opportunities,  so  that  only  the 
inequalities  of  Nature  remain.  Don't  you  believe  in  that, 
my  friend? 

Here  are  two  babies,  just  born  into  the  world.  Wee, 
helpless  seedlings  of  humanity,  they  are  wonderfully 
alike  in  their  helplessness.  One  lies  in  a  tenement  upon 
a  mean  bed,  the  other  in  a  mansion  upon  a  bed  of  won- 
derful richness.  But  if  they  were  both  removed  to  the 
same  surroundings  it  would  be  impossible  to  tell  one 
from  the  other.  It  has  happened,  you  know,  that  babies 
have  been  mixed  up  in  this  way,  the  child  of  a  poor 
servant  girl  taking  the  place  of  the  child  of  a  countess. 
Scientists  tell  us  that  Nature  is  wonderfully  democratic, 
and  that,  at  the  moment  of  birth,  there  is  no  physical 
difference  between  the  babies  of  the  richest  and  the 
babies  of  the  poorest.  It  is  only  afterward  that  man- 
made  inequalities  of  conditions  and  opportunities  make 
such  a  wide  difference  between  them. 

Look  at  our  two  babies  a  moment :  no  man  can  tell 
what  infinite  possibilities  lie  behind  those  mystery-laden 
eyes.  It  may  be  that  we  are  looking  upon  a  future  New- 
ton and  another  Savonarola,  or  upon  a  greater  than  Edi- 
son and  a  greater  than  Lincoln.     No  man  knows  what 


164  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

infinitude  of  good  or  ill  is  germinating  back  of  those  little 
puckered  brows,  nor  which  of  the  cries  may  develop  into 
a  voice  that  will  set  the  hearts  of  men  aflame  and  stir 
them  to  glorious  deeds.  Or  it  may  be  that  both  are  of 
the  common  clay,  that  neither  will  be  more  than  an  aver- 
age man,  representing  the  common  level  in  physical  and 
mental  equipment. 

But  I  ask  you,  friend  Jonathan,  is  it  less  than  justice 
to  demand  equal  opportunities  for  both?  Is  it  fair  that 
one  child  shall  be  carefully  nurtured  amid  healthful  sur- 
roundings, and  given  a  chance  to  develop  all  that  is  in 
him,  and  that  the  other  shall  be  cradled  in  poverty,  neg- 
lected, poorly  nurtured  in  a  poor  hovel  where  pestilence 
lingers,  and  denied  an  opportunity  to  develop  physically, 
mentally  and  morally?  Is  it  right  to  watch  and  tend 
one  of  the  human  seedlings  and  to  neglect  the  other? 
If,  by  chance  of  Nature's  inscrutable  working,  the  babe 
of  the  tenement  came  into  the  world  endowed  with  the 
greater  possibilities  of  the  two,  if  the  tenement  mother 
upon  her  mean  bed  bore  into  the  world  in  her  agony  a 
spark  of  divine  fire  of  genius,  the  soul  of  an  artist  like 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  or  of  a  poet  like  Keats,  is  it  less  than 
a  calamity  that  it  should  die  —  choked  by  conditions 
which  only  ignorance  and  greed  have  produced  ? 

Give  all  the  children  of  men  equal  opportunities,  leav- 
ing only  the  inequalities  of  Nature  to  manifest  them- 
selves, and  there  will  be  no  need  to  fear  a  dull  level  of 
humanity.  There  will  be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water  content  to  do  the  work  they  can ;  there  will  be 
scientists  and  inventors,  forever  enlarging  man's  kingdom 
in  the  universe ;  there  will  be  makers  of  songs  and 
dreamers  of  dreams  to  inspire  the  world.  Soci%Usm 
wants  to  unbind  the  souls  of  men,  setting  thcrti  free  for 
the  highest  and  best  that  is  in  them. 


OBJECTIONS  TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  165 

Do  you  know  the  story  of  Prometheus,  friend  Jona- 
than? It  is,  of  course,  a  myth,  but  it  serves  as  an  illus- 
tration of  my  present  point.  Prometheus,  for  ridiculing 
the  gods,  was  bound  to  a  rock  upon  Mount  Caucasus,  by 
order  of  Jupiter,  where  daily  for  thirty  years  a  vulture 
came  and  tore  at  his  liver,  feeding  upon  it.  Then  there 
came  to  his  aid  Hercules,  who  unbound  the  tortured  vic- 
tim and  set  him  free.  Like  another  Prometheus,  the  soul 
of  man  to-day  is  bound  to  a  rock  — the  rock  of  capital- 
ism. The  vulture  of  Greed  tears  the  victim,  remorse- 
lessly and  unceasingly.  And  now,  to  break  the  chains, 
to  set  the  soul  of  man  free,  Hercules  comes  in  the  form 
of  the  SociaUst  movement.  It  is  nothing  less  than  this, 
my  friend.  In  the  last  analysis,  it  is  the  bondage  of  the 
soul  which  counts  for  most  in  our  indictment  of  capital- 
ism and  the  liberation  of  the  soul  is  the  goal  toward 
which  we  are  striving. 

It  is  to-day,  under  capitalism,  that  men  are  reduced 
to  a  dull  level.  The  great  mass  of  the  people  live  dull, 
sordid  lives,  their  individuality  relentlessly  crushed  out. 
The  modern  workman  has  no  chance  to  express  any 
individuality  in  his  work,  for  he  is  part  of  a  great  ma- 
chine, as  much  so  as  any  one  of  the  many  levers  and 
cogs.  Capitalism  makes  humanity  appear  as  a  great 
plain  with  a  few  peaks  immense  distances  apart  —  a  dull 
level  of  mental  and  moral  attainment  with  a  few  giants. 
I  say  to  you  in  all  seriousness,  Jonathan,  that  if  nothing 
better  were  possible  I  should  want  to  pray  with  the  poet 
Browning, — 

Make  no  more  giants,  God  — 
But  elevate  the  race  at  once! 

But  I  don't  believe  that.     I  am  satisfied  that  when  we 
destroy  man-made  inequalities,  leaving  only  the  inequal- 


l66  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

ities  of  Nature's  making,  there  will  be  no  need  to  fear 
the  dull  level  of  life.  When  all  the  chains  of  ignorance 
and  greed  have  been  struck  from  the  Prometheus-like 
human  soul,  then,  and  not  till  then,  w\\\  the  soul  of  man 
be  free  to  soar  upward. 

(7)  For  the  reasons  already  indicated,  Socialism  would 
not  destroy  the  incentive  to  progress.  It  is  possible  that 
a  stagnation  would  result  from  any  attempt  to  establish 
absolute  equality  such  as  I  have  already  described.  If 
it  were  the  aim  of  Socialism  to  stamp  out  all  individu- 
ality, this  objection  would  be  well  founded,  it  seems  to 
me.     But  that  is  not  the  aim  of  Socialism. 

The  people  who  make  this  objection  seem  to  think 
that  the  only  incentive  to  progress  comes  from  a  few  men 
and  their  hope  and  desire  to  be  masters  of  the  lives  of 
others,  but  that  is  not  true.  Greed  is  certainly  a  power- 
ful incentive  to  some  kinds  of  progress,  but  the  history 
of  the  world  shows  that  there  are  other  and  nobler  in- 
centives. The  hope  of  getting  somebody  else's  property 
is  a  powerful  incentive  to  the  burglar  and  has  led  to  the 
invention  of  all  kinds  of  tools  and  ingenious  methods, 
but  we  do  not  hesitate  to  take  away  that  incentive  to 
that  kind  of  "  progress."  The  hope  of  getting  power 
to  exploit  the  people  acts  as  a  powerful  incentive  to  great 
corporations  to  devise  schemes  to  defeat  the  laws  of  the 
nation,  to  corrupt  legislators  and  judges,  and  otherwise 
assail  the  liberties  of  the  people.  That,  also,  is  "  prog- 
ress "  of  a  kind,  but  we  do  not  hesitate  to  try  to  take 
away  that  incentive. 

Even  to-day,  Jonathan,  Greed  is  not  the  most  powerful 
incentive  in  the  world.  The  greatest  statesmanship  in 
the  world  is  not  inspired  by  greed,  but  by  love  of  country, 
the  desire  for  the  approbation  and  confidence  of  others, 
and  numerous  other  motives.     Greed  never  inspired  a 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  167 

great  teacher,  a  great  artist,  a  great  scientist,  a  great 
inventor,  a  great  soldier,  a  great  writer,  a  great  poet,  a 
great  physician,  a  great  scholar  or  a  great  statesman. 
Love  of  country,  love  of  fame,  love  of  beauty,  love  of 
doing,  love  of  humanity  —  all  these  have  meant  infin- 
itely more  than  greed  in  the  progress  of  the  world. 

(8)  Finally,  Jonathan,  I  want  to  consider  your  objec- 
tion that  Socialism  is  impossible  until  human  nature  is 
changed.  It  is  an  old  objection  which  crops  up  in  every 
discussion  of  Socialism.  People  talk  about  "  human 
nature  "  as  though  it  were  something  fixed  and  definite ; 
as  if  there  were  certain  quantities  of  various  qualities 
and  instincts  in  every  human  being,  and  that  these  never 
changed  from  age  to  age.  The  primitive  savage  in 
many  lands  went  out  to  seek  a  wife  armed  with  a  club. 
He  hunted  the  woman  of  his  choice  as  he  would  hunt  a 
beast,  capturing  and  clubbing  her  into  submission.  That 
was  human  nature,  Jonathan.  The  modern  man  in  civ- 
ilized countries,  when  he  goes  seeking  a  wife,  hunts  the 
woman  of  his  choice  with  flattery,  bon-bons,  flowers, 
opera  tickets  and  honeyed  words.  Instead  of  a  brute 
clubbing  a  woman  almost  to  death,  we  see  the  pleading 
lover,  cautiously  and  earnestly  wooing  his  bride.  And 
that,  too,  is  human  nature.  The  African  savages  suf- 
fering from  the  dread  "  Sleeping  Sickness  "  and  the  poor 
Indian  ryots  suffering  from  Bubonic  Plague  see  their 
fellows  dying  by  thousands  and  think  angry  gods  are 
punishing  them.  All  they  can  hope  to  do  is  to  appease 
the  gods  by  gifts  or  by  mutilating  their  own  poor  bodies. 
That  is  human  nature,  my  friend.  But  a  great  scientist 
like  Dr.  Koch,  of  Berlin,  goes  into  the  African  centres 
of  pestilence  and  death,  seeks  the  germ  of  the  disease, 
drains  swamps,  purifies  water,  isolates  the  infected  cases 
and  proves  himself  more  powerful  than  the  poor  natives' 


1 68  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

gods.  And  that  is  human  nature.  Outside  the  gates  of 
the  Chicago  stockyards,  I  have  seen  crowds  of  men 
fighting  for  work  as  hungry  dogs  fight  over  a  bone.  That 
was  human  nature.  I  have  seen  a  man  run  down  in  the 
streets  and  at  once  there  was  a  crowd  ready  to  Hft  him 
up  and  to  do  anything  for  him  that  they  could.  It  was 
the  very  opposite  spirit  to  that  shown  by  the  brutish, 
snarHng,  cursing,  fighting  men  at  the  stockyards,  but  it 
was  just  as  much  human  nature. 

The  great  law  of  human  development,  that  which  ex- 
presses itself  in  what  is  so  vaguely  termed  human  na- 
ture, is  that  man  is  a  creature  of  his  environment,  that 
self-preservation  is  a  fundamental  instinct  in  human  be- 
ings. Socialism  is  not  an  idealistic  attempt  to  substitute 
some  other  law  of  life  for  that  of  self-preservation.  On 
the  contrary,  it  rests  entirely  upon  that  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  Here  are  two  classes  opposed  to  each 
other  in  modern  society.  One  class  is  small  but  exceed- 
ingly powerful,  so  that,  despite  its  disadvantage  in  size, 
it  is  the  ruling  class,  controlling  the  larger  class  and 
exploiting  it.  When  we  ask  ourselves  how  that  is  possi- 
ble, how  it  happens  that  the  smaller  class  rules  the  larger, 
we  soon  find  that  the  members  of  the  smaller  class  have 
become  conscious  of  their  interests  and  the  fact  that 
these  can  be  best  promoted  through  organization  and 
association.  Thus  conscious  of  their  class  interests,  and 
acting  together  by  a  class  instinct,  they  have  been  able 
to  rule  the  world.  But  the  workers,  the  class  that  is 
much  stronger  numerically,  have  been  slower  to  recog- 
nize their  class  interests.  Inevitably,  however,  they  are 
developing  a  similar  class  sense,  or  instinct.  Uniting  in 
the  economic  struggle  at  first,  and  then,  in  the  political 
struggle  in  order  that  they  may  further  their  economic 
interests  through  the  channels  of  government,  it  is  easy 


OBJECTIONS   TO   SOCIALISM    CONSIDERED  169 

to  see  that  only  one  outcome  of  the  struggle  is  possible. 
By  sheer  force  of  numbers,  the  workers  must  win,  Jona- 
than. 

The  Socialist  movement,  then,  is  not  something  for- 
eign to  human  nature,  but  it  is  an  inevitable  part  of  the 
development  of  human  society.  The  fundamental  instinct 
of  the  human  species  makes  the  Socialist  movement 
inevitable  and  irresistible.  Socialism  does  not  require  a 
change  in  human  nature,  but  human  nature  does  require 
a  change  in  society.  And  that  change  is  Socialism.  It 
is  perhaps  the  deepest  and  profoundest  instinct  in  human 
beings  that  they  are  forever  striving  to  secure  the  larg- 
est possible  material  comfort,  forever  striving  to  secure 
more  of  good  in  return  for  less  of  ill.  And  in  that  lies 
the  great  hope  of  the  future,  Jonathan.  The  great 
Demos  is  learning  that  poverty  is  unnecessary,  that  there 
is  plenty  for  all ;  that  none  need  suffer  want ;  that  it  is 
possible  to  suffer  less  and  to  hve  more;  to  have  more 
of  good  while  suffering  less  of  ill.  The  face  of  Demos 
is  turned  toward  the  future,  toward  the  dawning  of  So- 
cialism. 


XI 

WHAT  TO  DO 


Are  you  in  earnest?     Seize  this  very  minute. 

What  you  can  do,  or  dream  you  can,  begin  it ! 

Boldness  has  genius,  power  and  magic  in  it. 

Only  engage  and  then  the  mind  grows  heated; 

Begin,  and  then  the  work  will  be  completed. —  Goethe. 

Apart  from  those  convulsive  upheavals  that  escape  all  fore- 
cast and  are  sometimes  the  final  supreme  resource  of  history 
brought  to  bay,  there  is  only  one  sovereign  method  for  Social- 
ism—  the  conquest  of  a  legal  majority. —  Jean  Jaures. 

When  one  is  convinced  of  the  justice  and  wisdom  of  the 
SociaHst  idea,  when  its  inspiration  has  begun  to  quicken 
the  pulse  and  to  stir  the  soul,  it  is  natural  that  one  should 
desire  to  do  something  to  express  one's  convictions  and 
to  add  something,  however  httle,  to  the  movement.  Not 
only  that,  but  the  first  impulse  is  to  seek  the  comradeship 
of  other  Socialists  and  to  work  with  them  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  Socialist  ideal. 

Of  course,  the  first  duty  of  every  sincere  believer  in 
Socialism  is  to  vote  for  it.  No  matter  how  hopeless  the 
contest  may  seem,  nor  how  far  distant  the  electoral  tri- 
umph, the  first  duty  is  to  vote  for  Sociahsm.  If  you 
believe  in  Socialism,  my  friend,  even  though  your  vote 
should  be  the  only  Socialist  vote  in  your  city,  you  could 
not  be  true  to  yourself  and  to  your  faith  and  vote  any 
other  ticket.     I  know  that  it  requires  courage  to  do  this 

170 


WHAT   TO   t)0  171 

sometimes.  I  know  that  there  are  many  who  will  deride 
the  action  and  say  that  you  are  "  wasting  your  vote," 
but  no  vote  is  ever  wasted  when  it  is  cast  for  a  principle, 
Jonathan.  For,  after  all,  what  is  a  vote?  Is  it  not  an 
expression  of  the  citizen's  conviction  concerning  the  sort 
of  government  he  desires?  How,  then  can  his  vote  be 
thrown  away  if  it  really  expresses  his  conviction?  He 
is  entitled  to  a  single  voice,  and  provided  that  he  avails 
himself  of  his  right  to  declare  through  the  ballot  box  his 
conviction,  no  matter  whether  he  stands  alone  or  with 
ten  thousand,  his  vote  is  not  thrown  away. 

The  only  vote  that  is  wasted  is  the  vote  that  is  cast 
for  something  other  than  the  voter's  earnest  conviction, 
the  vote  of  cowardice  and  compromise.  The  man  who 
votes  for  what  he  fully  believes  in,  even  if  he  is  the  only 
one  so  voting,  does  not  lose  his  vote,  waste  it  or  use  it 
unwisely.  The  only  use  of  a  vote  is  to  declare  the  kind 
of  government  the  voter  believes  in.  But  the  man  who 
votes  for  something  he  does  not  want,  for  something  less 
than  his  convictions,  that  man  loses  his  vote  or  throws 
it  away,  even  though  he  votes  on  the  winning  side.  Get 
this  well  into  your  mind,  friend  Jonathan,  for  there  are 
cities  in  which  the  Socialists  would  sweep  everything 
before  them  and  be  elected  to  power  if  all  the  people 
who  believe  in  Socialism,  but  refuse  to  vote  for  it  on  the 
ground  that  they  would  be  throwing  away  their  votes, 
would  be  true  to  themselves  and  vote  according  to  their 
inmost  convictions. 

I  say  that  we  must  vote  for  Socialism,  Jonathan,  be- 
cause I  believe  that,  in  this  country  at  least,  the  change 
from  capitalism  must  be  brought  about  through  patient 
and  wise  political  action.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  eco- 
nomic organizations,  the  trade  unions,  will  help,  and  I 
can  even  conceive  the  possibility  of  their  being  the  chief 


J72  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

agencies  in  the  transformation  in  society.  That  possi- 
bility, however,  seems  exceedingly  remote,  while  the  pos- 
sibility of  effecting  the  change  through  the  ballot  box  is 
vmdeniable.  Once  let  the  working-class  of  America 
make  up  its  mind  to  vote  for  Socialism,  nothing  can  pre- 
vent its  coming.  And  unless  the  workers  are  wise 
enough  and  united  enough  to  vote  together  for  Social- 
ism, Jonathan,  it  is  scarcely  likely  that  they  will  be  able 
to  adopt  other  methods  with  success. 

But  as  voting  for  Socialism  is  the  most  obvious  duty 
of  all  who  are  convinced  of  its  justness  and  wisdom,  so 
it  is  the  least  duty.  To  cast  your  vote  for  Socialism  is 
the  very  least  contribution  to  the  movement  which  you 
can  make.  The  next  step  is  to  spread  the  light,  to  pro- 
claim the  principles  of  Socialism  to  others.  To  be  a 
Socialist  is  the  first  step ;  to  make  Socialists  is  the  second 
step.  Every  Socialist  ought  to  be  a  missionary  for  the 
great  cause.  By  talking  with  your  friends  and  by  cir- 
culating suitable  Socialist  literature,  you  can  do  effective 
work  for  the  cause,  work  not  less  effective  than  thatt  of 
the  orator  addressing  big  audiences.  Don't  forget,  my 
friend,  that  in  the  Socialist  movement  there  is  work  for 
you  to  do. 

Naturally,  you  will  want  to  be  an  efficient  worker  for 
Socialism,  to  be  able  to  work  successfully.  Therefore 
you  will  need  to  join  the  organized  movement,  to  become 
a  member  of  the  Socialist  Party.  In  this  way,  working 
with  many  other  comrades,  you  will  be  able  to  accom- 
plish much  more  than  as  an  individual  working  alone. 
So  I  ask  you  to  join  the  party,  friend  Jonathan,  and  to 
assume  a  fair  and  just  share  of  the  responsibilities  of  the 
movement. 

In  the  Socialist  party  organization  there  are  qo 
"  Leaders  "  in  the  sense  in  which  that  term  is  used  ui 


WHAT  TO  DO  173 

connection  with  the  political  parties  of  capitalism.  There 
are  men  who  by  virtue  of  long  service  and  exceptional 
talents  of  various  kinds  are  looked  up  to  by  their  com- 
rades, and  whose  words  carry  great  weight.  But  the 
government  of  the  organization  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
rank  and  file  and  everything  is  directed  from  the  bottom 
upwards,  not  from  the  top  downwards.  The  party  is  not 
owned  by  a  few  people  who  provide  its  funds,  for  these 
are  provided  by  the  entire  membership.  Each  member 
of  the  party  pays  a  small  monthly  fee,  and  the  amounts 
thus  contributed  are  divided  between  the  local,  state  and 
national  divisions  of  the  organization.  It  is  thus  a  party 
of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  which 
bosses  cannot  corrupt  or  betray. 

So  I  would  urge  you,  Jonathan,  and  all  who  believe 
in  Socialism,  to  join  the  party  organization.  Get  into 
the  movement  in  earnest  and  try  to  keep  posted  upon  all 
that  relates  to  it.  Read  some  of  the  papers  published  by 
the  party  —  at  least  two  papers  representing  different 
phases  of  the  movement.  There  are,  always  and  every- 
where, at  least  two  distinct  tendencies  in  the  SociaUst 
movement,  a  radical  wing  and  a  more  moderate  wing. 
Whichever  of  these  appeals  to  you  as  the  right  tendency, 
you  will  need  to  keep  informed  as  to  both. 

Above  all,  my  friend,  I  would  like  to  have  you  study 
Socialism.  I  don't  mean  merely  that  you  should  read  a 
Socialist  propaganda  paper  or  two,  or  a  few  pamphlets : 
I  do  not  call  that  studying  SociaHsm.  Such  papers  and 
pamphlets  are  very  good  in  their  way ;  they  are  written 
for  people  who  are  not  Socialists  for  the  purpose  of 
awakening  their  interest.  So  far  as  they  go  they  are 
valuable,  but  I  would  not  have  you  stop  there,  Jonathan. 
I  would  like  to  have  you  push  your  studies  beyond  them, 
beyond  even  the  more  elaborate  discussions  of  the  sub- 


174  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALJSlM 

ject  contained  in  such  books  as  this.  Read  the  great 
classics  of  Socialist  literature  —  and  don't  be  afraid  of 
reading  the  attacks  made  upon  Socialism  by  its  oppo- 
nents. Study  the  philosophy  of  Socialism  and  its  eco- 
nomic theories ;  try  to  apply  them  to  your  personal  expe- 
rience and  to  the  events  of  every  day  as  they  are  re- 
ported in  the  great  newspapers.  You  see,  Jonathan,  I 
not  only  v^^ant  you  to  know  what  Socialism  is  in  a  very 
thorough  manner,  but  I  also  want  you  to  be  able  to  teach 
others  in  a  very  thorough  manner. 

And  now,  my  patient  friend,  Good  Bye !  If  The  Com- 
mon Sense  of  Socialism  has  helped  you  to  a  clear  under- 
standing of  Socialism,  I  shall  be  amply  repaid  for  writ- 
ing it.  I  ask  you  to  accept  it  for  whatever  measure  of 
good  it  may  do  and  to  forgave  its  shortcomings.  Others 
might  have  written  a  better  book  for  you,  and  some  day 
I  may  do  better  myself  —  I  do  not  know.  I  have  hon- 
estly tried  my  best  to  set  the  claims  of  Socialism  before 
you  in  plain  language  and  with  comradely  spirit.  And 
if  it  succeeds  in  convincing  you  and  making  you  a  So- 
cialist, Jonathan,  I  shall  be  satisfied. 


APPENDIX  I 

A  SUGGESTED  COURSE  OF  READING  ON   SOCIALISM 

The  following  list  of  books  on  various  phases  of  So- 
cialism is  published  in  connection  with  the  advice  con- 
tained on  pages  173-174  relating  to  the  necessity  of 
studying  Socialism.  The  names  of  the  publishers  are 
given  in  each  case  for  the  reader's  convenience,  Charles 
H.  Kerr  &  Company  do  not  sell,  or  receive  orders  for, 
books  issued  by  other  publishers. 

(A)  History  of  Sodalism 

The  History  of  Socialism,  by  Thomas  Kirkup.  The 
Macmillan  Company,  New  York.     Price  $1.50,  net. 

French  and  German  Socialism  in  Modern  Times,  by 
R.  T.  Ely.  Harper  Brothers,  New  York.  Price  75 
cents. 

The  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States,  by  Mor- 
ris Hillquit.  The  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Company,  New 
York.     Price  $1.75. 

(S)  Biographies  of  Socialists 

Memoirs  of  Karl  Marx,  by  Wilhelm  Liebknecht. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

Ferdinand  Lassalle  as  a  Social  Reformer,  by  Eduard 
Bernstein.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago. 
Price  $1.00. 

Frederick  Engels :  His  Life  and  Work,  by  Karl  Kaut- 

175 


176  COMMON    SENSE   OF    SOCIALISM 

sky.     Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  10 
cents. 

(C)   General  Expositions  of  Socialism 

Principles  of  Scientific  Socialism,  by  Charles  H.  Vail. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  $1.00. 

Collectivism,  by  Emile  Vandervelde.  Charles  H.  Kerr 
&  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

Socialism :  A  Summary  and  Interpretation  of  Socialist 
Principles,  by  John  Spargo.  The  Macmillan  Company, 
New  York.     Price  $1.25,  net. 

The  Socialists  —  Who  They  Are  and  What  They 
Stand  For,  by  John  Spargo.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Com- 
pany, Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

The  Quintessence  of  Socialism,  by  Prof.  A.  E.  Schaf- 
fle.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.  Price  $1.00. 
This  is  by  an  opponent  of  Socialism,  but  is  much  circu- 
lated by  Socialists  as  a  fair  and  lucid  statement  of  their 
principles. 

(D)  The  Philosophy  of  Socialism 

The  Communist  Manifesto,  by  Karl  Marx  and  Fred- 
erick Engels.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago. 
In  paper  at  10  cents.  Also  superior  edition  in  cloth  at 
50  cents. 

Evolution,  Social  and  Organic,  by  A.  M.  Lewis. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

The  Theoretical  System  of  Karl  Marx,  by  L,  B. 
Boudin.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.  Price 
$1.00. 

Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific,  by  F.  Engels. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.  Price  10  cents 
in  paper,  superior  edition  in  cloth  50  cents. 

Mass  and  Class,  by  W.   J.   Ghent.    The   Macmillan 


APPENDIX  177 

Company,  New  York.     Price  paper  25  cents;  cloth  $1.25, 
net. 

(E)  Economics  of  Socialism 

Marxian  Economics,  by  Ernest  Untermann.  Charles 
H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  $1.00. 

Wage  Labor  and  Capital,  by  Karl  Marx.  Charles  H. 
Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  5  cents. 

Value,  Price  and  Profit,  by  Karl  Marx.  Charles  H. 
Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

Capital,  by  Karl  Marx.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company, 
Chicago.     Two  volumes,  price  $2.00  each. 

(F)  Socialism  as  Related  to  Special  Questions 

The  American  Farmer,  by  A.  M.  Simons.  Charles  H. 
Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.  Price  50  cents.  An  ad- 
mirable study  of  agricultural  conditions. 

Socialism  and  Anarchism,  by  George  Plechanoff. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

Poverty,  by  Robert  Hunter.  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany, New  York.     Price  25  cents  and  $1.50. 

American  Pauperism,  by  Isador  LadofF.  Charles  H. 
Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.     Price  50  cents. 

The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children,  by  John  Sparge.  The 
Macmillan  Company,  New  York.  Price  $1.50,  illus- 
trated. 

Class  Struggles  in  America,  by  A.  M.  Simons. 
Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago.  Price  50  cents. 
A  notable  application  of  Socialist  theory  to  American 
history. 

Underfed  School  Children,  the  Problem  and  the  Rem- 
edy. By  John  Spargo.  Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company, 
Chicago.     Price  10  cents. 

Socialists  in  French  Municipalities,  a  compilation  from 


178  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

official  reports.     Charles  H.  Kerr  &  Company,  Chicago 
Price  5  cents. 

Socialists  at  Work,  by  Robert  Hunter.    The  Macmi^ 
Ian  Company,  New  York.     Price  $1.50,  net. 


APPENDIX  II 

HOW    SOCIALIST    BOOKS    ARE    PUBLISHED 

Nothing  bears  more  remarkable  evidence  to  the  growth 
of  the  American  Socialist  movement  than  the  phenomena! 
development  of  its  literature.  Even  more  eloquently 
than  the  Socialist  vote,  this  literature  tells  of  the  onward 
sweep  of  Socialism  in  this  country. 

Only  a  few  years  ago,  the  entire  literature  of  Social- 
ism published  in  this  country  was  less  than  the  present 
monthly  output.  There  was  Bellamy's  "  Looking  Back- 
ward," a  belated  expression  of  the  Utopian  school,  not 
related  to  modern  scientific  Socialism,  though  it  accom- 
plished considerable  good  in  its  day ;  there  were  a  couple 
of  volumes  by  Professor  R.  T.  Ely,  obviously  inspired 
by  a  desire  to  be  fair,  but  missing  the  essential  principles 
of  Socialism ;  there  were  a  couple  of  volumes  by  Lau- 
rence Gronlund  and  there  was  Sprague's  "  Socialism 
From  Genesis  to  Revelation."  These  and  a  handful  of 
pamphlets  constituted  America's  contribution  to  Socialist 
literature. 

Added  to  these,  were  a  few  books  and  pamphlets  trans- 
lated from  the  German,  most  of  them  written  in  a  heavy, 
ponderous  style  which  the  average  American  worker 
found  exceedingly  difficult.  The  great  classics  of  Social- 
ism were  not  available  to  any  but  those  able  to  read 
some  other  language  than  English.  "  Socialism  is  a 
foreign  movement,"  said  the  American  complacently. 

Even  six  or  seven  years  ago,  the  publication  of  a 
179 


l8o  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

Socialist  pamphlet  by  an  American  writer  was  regarded 
as  a  very  notable  event  in  the  movement  and  the  writer 
was  assured  of  a  certain  fame  in  consequence. 

Now,  in  this  year,  1908,  it  is  very  different.  There 
are  hundreds  of  excellent  books  and  pamphlets  available 
to  the  American  worker  and  student  of  Socialism,  deal- 
ing with  every  conceivable  phase  of  the  subject. 
Whereas  ten  years  ago  none  of  the  great  industrial 
countries  of  the  world  had  a  more  meagre  Socialist 
literature  than  America,  to-day  America  leads  the  world 
in  its  output. 

Only  a  few  of  the  many  Socialist  books  have  been 
issued  by  ordinary  capitalist  publishing  houses.  Half  a 
dozen  volumes  by  such  writers  as  Ghent,  Hillquit,  Hun- 
ter, Spargo  and  Sinclair  exhaust  the  list.  It  could  not 
be  expected  that  ordinary  publishers  would  issue  books 
and  pamphlets  purposely  written  for  propaganda  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  the  more  serious  works  which  are  expen- 
sive to  produce  and  slow  to  sell  upon  the  other  hand. 

The  Socialists  themselves  have  published  all  the  rest 
—  the  propaganda  books  and  pamphlets,  the  translations 
of  great  Socialist  classics  and  the  important  contributions 
to  the  literature  of  Socialist  philosophy  and  economics 
made  by  American  students,  many  of  whom  are  the 
products  of  the  Socialist  movement  itself. 

They  have  done  these  great  things  through  a  co-opera- 
tive publishing  house,  known  as  Charles  H.  Kerr  & 
Company  (Co-operative).  Nearly  2000  Socialists  and 
sympathizers  with  Socialism,  scattered  throughout  the 
country,  have  joined  in  the  work.  As  shareholders,  they 
have  paid  ten  dollars  for  each  share  of  stock  in  the  en- 
terprise, with  no  thought  of  ever  getting  any  profits, 
their  only  advantage  being  the  ability  to  buy  the  books 
issued  by  the  concern  at  a  great  reduction. 


APPENDIX  l8l 

Here  is  the  method :  A  person  buys  a  share  of  stock 
at  ten  dollars  (arrangements  can  be  made  to  pay  this 
by  instalments,  if  desired)  and  he  or  she  can  then  buy 
books  and  pamphlets  at  a  reduction  of  fifty  per  cent. — ■- 
or  forty  per  cent,  if  sent  post  or  express  paid. 

Looking  over  the  list  of  the  company's  publications, 
one  notes  names  that  are  famous  in  this  and  other  coun- 
tries. Marx,  Engels,  Kautsky,  Lassalle,  and  Liebknecht 
among  the  great  Germans ;  Lafargue,  Deville  and  Guesde, 
of  France ;  Ferri  and  Labriola,  of  Italy ;  Hyndman  and 
Blatchford,  of  England ;  Plechanoff,  of  Russia ;  Upton 
Sinclair,  Jack  London,  John  Spargo,  A.  M.  Simons, 
Ernest  Untermann  and  Morris  Hillquit,  of  the  United 
States.  These,  and  scores  of  other  names  less  known 
to  the  general  public. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  give  here  a  complete  list  of  the 
company's  publications.  Such  a  list  would  take  up  too 
much  room  —  and  before  it  was  published  it  would  be- 
come incomplete.  The  reader  who  is  interested  had 
better  send  a  request  for  a  complete  list,  which  will  at 
once  be  forwarded,  without  cost.  We  can  only  take  a 
few  books,  almost  at  random,  to  illustrate  the  great  va- 
riety of  the  publications  of  the  firm. 

You  have  heard  about  Karl  Marx,  the  greatest  of 
modern  Socialists,  and  naturally  you  would  like  to  know 
something  about  him.  Well,  at  fifty  cents  there  is  a 
charming  little  book  of  biographical  memoirs  by  his 
friend  Liebnecht,  well  worth  reading  again  and  again  for 
its  literary  charm  not  less  than  for  the  loveable  char- 
acter it  portrays  so  tenderly.  Here,  also,  is  the  com- 
plete list  of  the  works  of  Marx  yet  translated  into  the 
English  language.  There  is  the  famous  Communist 
Manifesto  by  Marx  and  Engels,  at  ten  cents,  and  the 
other  works  of   Marx   up  to  and   including  his  great 


l82  COMMON    SENSE  OF   SOCIALISM 

master- work,  Capital,  in  three  big  volumes  at  two  dollars 
each  —  two  of  which  are  already  published,  the  other 
being  in  course  of  preparation. 

For  propaganda  purposes,  in  addition  to  a  big  list  of 
cheap  pamphlets,  many  of  them  small  enough  to  enclose 
in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  there  are  a  number  of  cheap  books. 
These  have  been  specially  written  for  beginners,  most 
of  them  for  workingmen.  Here,  for  example,  one  picks 
out  at  a  random  shot  Work's  "  What's  So  and  What 
Isn't,"  a  breezy  little  book  in  which  all  the  common 
questions  about  Socialism  are  answered  in  simple  lan- 
guage. Or  here  again  we  pick  up  Spargo's  "  The  So- 
cialists, Who  They  Are  and  What  They  Stand  For,"  a 
little  book  which  has  attained  considerable  popularity  as 
an  easy  statement  of  the  essence  of  modern  Socialism. 
For  readers  of  a  little  more  advanced  type  there  is  "  Col- 
lectivism," by  Emil  Vandervelde,  the  eminent  Belgian 
Socialist  leader,  a  wonderful  book.  This  and  Engels' 
"  Socialism  Utopian  and  Scientific "  will  lead  to  books 
of  a  more  advanced  character,  some  of  v/hich  we  must 
mention.  The  four  books  mentioned  in  this  paragraph 
cost  fifty  cents  each,  postpaid.  They  are  well  printed 
and  neatly  and  durably  bound  in  cloth. 

Going  a  little  further,  there  are  two  admirable  vol- 
umes by  Antonio  Labriola,  expositions  of  the  funda- 
mental doctrine  of  Social  philosophy,  called  the  "  Mate- 
rialist Conception  of  History,"  and  a  volume  by  Austin 
Lewis,  "  The  Rise  of  the  American  Proletarian,"  in 
which  the  theory  is  applied  to  a  phase  of  American  his- 
tory. These  books  sell  at  a  dollar  each,  and  it  would  be 
very  hard  to  find  anything  like  the  same  value  in  book- 
making  in  any  other  publisher's  catalogue.  Only  the 
co-operation  of  nearly  2000  Socialist  men  and  women 
makes  it  possible. 


APPENDIX  183 

For  the  reader  who  has  got  so  far,  yet  finds  it  im- 
possible to  undertake  a  study  of  the  voluminous  work 
of  Marx,  either  for  lack  of  leisure  or,  as  often  happens, 
lack  of  the  necessary  mental  training  and  equipment, 
there  are  two  splendid  books,  notable  examples  of  the 
work  which  American  Socialist  writers  are  now  putting 
out.  While  they  will  never  entirely  take  the  place  of  the 
great  work  of  Marx,  nevertheless,  whoever  has  read 
them  with  care  will  have  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  Marx- 
ism. They  are :  L.  B.  Boudin's  "  The  Theoretical  Sys- 
tem of  Karl  Marx  "  and  Ernest  Untermann's  "  Marxian 
Economics."  These  also  are  published  at  a  dollar  a 
volume. 

Perhaps  you  know  some  man  who  declares  that 
"  There  are  no  classes  in  America,"  who  loudly  boasts 
that  we  have  no  class  struggles :  just  get  a  copy  of  A.  M. 
Simon's  "  Class  Struggles  in  America,"  with  its  startling 
array  of  historical  references.  It  will  convince  him  if  it 
is  possible  to  get  an  idea  into  his  head.  Or  you  want  to 
get  a  good  book  to  lend  to  your  farmer  friends  who  want 
to  know  how  Socialism  touches  them :  get  another  vol- 
ume by  Simons,  called  "  The  American  Farmer."  You 
will  never  regret  it.  Or  perhaps  you  are  troubled  about 
the  charge  that  Socialism  and  Anarchism  are  related. 
If  so,  get  Plechanoff's  "  Anarchism  and  Socialism  "  and 
read  it  carefully.  These  three  books  are  published  at 
fifty  cents  each. 

Are  you  interested  in  science?  Do  you  want  to  know 
the  reason  why  Socialists  speak  of  Marx  as  doing  for 
Sociology  what  Darwin  did  for  biology  ?  If  so,  you  will 
want  to  read  "  Evolution,  Social  and  Organic,"  by 
Arthur  Morrow  Lewis,  price  fifty  cents.  And  you  will 
be  delighted  beyond  your  powers  of  expression  with  the 
several  volumes  of  the  Library  of  Science  for  the  Work- 


184  COMMON    SENSE   OF   SOCIALISM 

ers,  published  at  the  same  price.  "  The  Evolution  of 
Man  "  and  "  The  Triumph  of  Life,"  both  by  the  famous 
German  scientist,  Dr.  Wilhelm  Boelsche ;  '*  The  Making 
of  the  World  "  and  "  The  End  of  the  World,"  both  by 
Dr.  M.  Wilhelm  Meyer ;  and  "  Germs  of  Mind  in  Plants," 
by  R.  H.  France,  are  some  of  the  volumes  which  the  pres- 
ent writer  read  with  absorbing  interest  himself  and 
then  read  them  to  a  lot  of  boys  and  girls,  to  their  equal 
delight. 

One  could  go  on  and  on  talking  about  this  wonderful 
list  of  books  which  marks  the  tremendous  intellectual 
strength  of  the  American  Socialist  movement.  Here  is 
the  real  explosive,  a  weapon  far  more  powerful  than 
dynamite  bombs?  Socialists  must  win  in  a  battle  of 
brains  —  and  here  is  ammunition  for  them. 

Individual  Socialists  who  can  afford  it  should  take 
shares  of  stock  in  this  great  enterprise.  If  they  can 
pay  the  ten  dollars  all  at  once,  well  and  good;  if  not, 
they  can  pay  in  monthly  instalments.  And  every  Social- 
ist local  ought  to  own  a  share  of  stock  in  the  company, 
if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  literature  can  then  be 
bought  much  more  cheaply  than  otherwise.  But  of 
course  there  is  an  even  greater  reason  than  that  —  every 
Socialist  local  ought  to  take  pride  in  the  development  of 
the  enterprise  which  has  done  so  much  to  develop  a 
great  American  Socialist  literature. 

Fuller  particulars  will  be  sent  upon  application.  Ad- 
dress : 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY,  (Co-operative) 
118  West  Kinzie  street,  Chicago 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


-v<»«,    FEB 

RENEWAL 
MAR  1 


u^D    9 1970 


URL 


Form  L9-Series  4939 


UCLA-Young  Research   Library 

HX86   .S73CO 

y 


HX 

86 
S73CO 


i|l!l 


